Klarinet Archive - Posting 000074.txt from 1998/02

From: Mark Charette <charette@-----.com>
Subj: Re: To All Concerned
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 14:29:20 -0500

Robin Fairbairns wrote:
> Edwin Lacy wrote:
> > On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, someone wrote:
> the friend of a friend may be on top of the issues but he's repeating
> something that's *very* old. it's known that usa/canadian telcos
> aren't enchanted by `free' local calls, and that they did (at least 5
> years ago?) start rumbling about imposing charges on internet
> connection calls, but no-one has yet defined a mechanism whereby they
> could charge for internet calls and not for voice or fax calls...

This one _did_ have a good chunk of truth after I finally got
a response back from the address given. It had to do with some
US telcos trying to classify ISPs as carriers rather than businesses
because of the way the fee structure is for businesses (businesses
pay a flat rate for basic service & incoming calls, per minute
charges for outgoing). Since ISPs have incoming but not outgoing
calls, the telcos do not recieve what they feel is a reasonable fee.
To circumvent this they requested the FCC to re-classify ISPs as
carriers (like Sprint & AT&T) so they could charge per-minute for
incoming (the carriers are charged both ways).

The FCC denied the petition last year and it is a dead issue - for
now.
--
Mark Charette | "This is a very democratic organization, so let's
charette@-----. All those who disagree with me, raise
MIKA Systems, Inc.| their hands." - Eugene Ormandy
Webmaster of http://www.sneezy.org/clarinet, The Clarinet Pages