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Verizon Ruling May Tax Dial-Up Customers
cellocgw writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that a court ruling in Verizon's favor could effectively allow phone companies to charge dial-up users on a per-minute basis." From the article: "About 68 percent of US internet users now connect via broadband, according to the latest data from Neilsen//NetRatings. That still leaves millions of users connecting the old way, in which modems in their home call local numbers over a telephone line to access the Internet. Precisely how many people were affected by the court ruling is unknown. Good said the number was in the thousands, but that Global NAPs did not have exact numbers and could not disclose the identities of all the companies that relied on Global NAPs for dial-up numbers."
but here's what I don't get :
... then Verizon should be paid for that call.
If I'm phone company b and somebody from phone company a calls one of my customers - then phone company a pays me for terminating the call for them.
Verizon is saying if a verizon customer calls a Global Naps customer
I dunno. It seems to me both the status quo ante (originating carrier pays terminating carrier) and the status quo post (for dialup ISP calls only, the ISP carrier pays the other carrier) aren't all that sensible.
The user pays their carrier for local calling (unlimited or not, doesn't matter, its paid for, and that's the deal). The ISPs carrier pays a premium to their carrier for a number in a different area than it is physically located in. Why should either carrier compensate the other? The originating carrier knows that the virtual numbers exist, and that's part of the cost of providing local service. Similarly, the ISP's carrier knows that they'll be getting calls from the logically local exchange, that's the whole point of the service they offer. Appropriate payment for the service that is being provided ought to be built into the subscription costs on both ends, and there should be monkeying around with compensatory payments between carriers.
The old way seems like a wide open opportunity for abuse -- as long as you can selectively market your service to someone who is going to receive more than send (like, say, an ISP) you can roll in the dough, taking money from the ISP for the service, and then taking money from the user's telcos for the calls to the ISP. Win!
The way represented by this state regulatory action, though, seems like a way for the big telcos to crank up the costs for regional or national ISPs that want to maintain local access numbers, thus shutting out one of their competitors for internet service.
Both ways seem pretty dumb, but maybe I'm missing something.
It's a little selfish for a company to pressure those consumers when the company is unwilling to invest in bringing them into the future.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
I am wondering not if he payed for the phone line, but if he also paid a monthly fee for his dial-up in addition to the minute by minute cost.
In the small rural town where I grew up the first Internet access to come to us hit you really hard with the charges. First you paid $30 for the phone line (which you already had), then you paid $40 for the service, then you paid 10 cents a minute to the ISP, and on top of all that there was no local number so you paid the phone company for the long distance call.