* Also: 'Net neutrality bill approved; Verizon speeds enterprise apps
A 3% federal excise tax that has been on the books since 1898 was repealed. The U.S. Treasury abolished the tax law last week, which will likely result in multimillion-dollar refunds for business customers. Colleague Denise Pappalardo reports that the IRS will issue refunds to consumers and businesses for taxes paid over the past three years in their 2006 filings.
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In the latest ‘Net Neutrality development, a U.S. House of Representatives committee has approved a bill that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or impairing their customers’ access to Web content offered by competitors. IDG News Service’s Grant Gross reports that the House Judiciary Committee voted 20-13 to approve the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act. The bill, sponsored by James Sensenbrenner, the Republican chairman of the committee, would require broadband providers to give independent content providers the same speed and quality of service as they have. The bill is needed because most U.S. residents have little choice in broadband providers, said Sensenbrenner, from Wisconsin.
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This news was so important we filed a brief on it two days after we posted the story … Verizon Business launched a suite of services designed to help companies enhance the performance of the applications on their Web sites. The new managed offerings, called Application Acceleration Services, accelerate the delivery of enterprise and e-commerce software applications, such as e-mail and online shopping carts. The services can also accommodate additional application traffic without increasing bandwidth or data center resources, Verizon Business says, and require no changes to the customer’s application or infrastructure.
