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FCC Decides ISP Calls are Long-Distance
Myko was the first to write in with an article confirming
that the FCC has decided that
ISP Calls are Long Distance. This
opens all sorts of problems that quite simply reduce down
to the consumer getting charged more money for our crappy slow
modem connections.
This is so stupid, I wonder if theres anyway to fight it?
I dont think there is an overreaction to this. That must be the stupidest move ive ever heard of... truly. If it is in the public's best interest, howcome the only people that will benefit are the phone companies?
Thank god im canadian. No wait.. we follow the US on most of this stuff... sucks to be north american i guess.
t0ast.
Well... looks like cable modems are starting to look a bit more appealing... who makes these friggen laws anyhow??????!!!!!
Makes that spam bill in Virgina look better and better.
What the hell is this really saying? Am I going to pay for local calls (to my ISP) as I would long distance calls?
Don't mean to sound stupid, but I'm confused.
I knew it would come down to this.
All of you fools didn't prepare yourself with new technologies, but I took the time. I invested in meat-based technologies. Yes, with meat-based ISPs you don't have to pay the price, and that's because meat == life. Life is free. Meat is free. Get it? Got it? Good.
-Z
This is crazy. Is an ISP is defined as the entity with a direct digital connection to the Internet (excluding ISDN, I guess)? What's to stop the local telcos from charging a fee to a guy (or gal) who has a Frame Relay connection or better to the Internet in their home for each analog phone line that also runs into their house?
I think it's a foregone conclusion that the Baby Bells will charge national/regional ISPs additional fees - and their own Internet service will be amazingly lower in price than everyone else.
Cygnus
-The God of Balance
I can't believe you idiots fell for it again.
http://www.urbanlegends.com/clas sic/modem_tax.html
cable modem.
Sounds like a conspiracy to force peope away from
regular modem access.
(Telco:)Hmm...we have to absorb
the cost of longer local phone calls while people
are dialed up to their ISP...Or we can we charge
the ISP for this kind of access as a long distance
call and they will pass that on to their customers. We( Telco ) then get people to switch
to the more expensive DSL or at worst they switch to our ISP because we don't pass those costs on
to them. After all...we don't charge our
Telco-owned ISP for the call.
GTE should be happy that the FCC is giving them
an oppurtunity to extend local telephone
monopolies into the ISP realm.
Relax, this will pass. There is no way that all the corporations out there who've spent millions of dollars on creating a pretty little website are going to take this. Who will want to go to a companies website to see all the propoganda if they're going to be charged for it.
This'll blow over.
Dammit, this really pisses me off. Cable is not avail in my area till June. So I'm forced to use my dial up account till then. I sometimes spend 12 hours a day on the net, either downloading stuff or just web browsing. This is the most idiotical thing for the consumer I've ever heard of. Of course the telco's are gonna love it. If this indeed comes to be I will be totally PISSED. Hell, I might ever write my congressman. God, please let their be a petition we could sign or something. Thousands of people will be screwed royally by this...
A more in-depth article on this is at:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,32789,00.html
It seems from reading it that it's a matter of whether or not the local companies or the long distance companies pay the costs of these calls, and doesn't directly involve consumers.
Besides, any local company that tried this would be eaten alive by a competitor that didn't (or cable, or phone, or other connectors).
Well, I guess I will rebel against Bell-Atlantic, who I know will start charging more, and get a cable modem, and a cell phone.. Or, maybe that 1.2tbs line from last week.. :)
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_Rel eases/1999/nrcc9014.html
Due to the nature of TCP/IP, anyone can connect to anyone else. I predict that if the FCC remains inflexible about this, people will just create their own WANS. Pretty soon whole neighborhoods could be interconnected and the phone companies would have major trouble finding out who was an ISP and who wasn't.
It's more likely that the FCC will repeal this idiocy because of the pressure of the public. For my pocketbook's sake, I reeeally hope they repeal it soon!
You play right into the Telcos hands. Just like the area code bullsh*t.
Think about it, the switches are there, the bandwidth is there (to handle a max load), and the telco pays regardless of usage.
Granted Internet calls last much longer than voice, but how many times in your local neighborhood have you received "try again". I receive this message frequently with Interlata calls in Chicago, but most people using ISPs tend to be local calls.
Doing such stupid shit is just going to decrease the popularity of the Internet and bring a larger gap between internet and non-internet users.
IT SUCKS CRANK!
I set up ppp dial-up on my linux box at the office. I'm home free.
I have to question this verdict, though. We aren't using the local telco's cables for the transaction across state lines, just through the local pbx to the ISP. I'm allowed to make a marathon voice call locally without penalty, why should this be different? It reminds of hotels that try and charge more money when you have more than 1 person stay in the same room. There's a small nugget of justification, but it just isn't legitimate enough to be enforced, sez I.
why dont u read stuff before blathering ur
anger all over the internet
then again im pretty angry too but..
More seriously this had to happen. Voice over IP
had pushed it to the point of being nonsensical.
So yes its annoying to internet users, no its not
unfair. Expect your provider/telco to offer you a
flat rate package deal.
Now if you want to fix this sanely you have to do
what all good capitalists do, except it seems
americans - open the local loop to real competition and issue subsidies in rural areas
to the lowest bidder who can offer reasonable
service - whatever technology - wireless should
be wiping out copper in rural areas and saving the
US millions of dollars
The problem is "unfair subsidies" allegedly. Not
really the problem is "distorting the free
market".
Patents, silly laws, unfair funding, its all part
of the same big problem.
hey, didja check that date on that FCC letter you reference? Notice it was from 1990? do you think this might be some sort of *different* legislation?
:)
Do you think the vote talked about in the article (which you didn't bother to read) is a legend as well? Did the editor of IDG get an email from a stranger that said "Forward this to as many people as possible! FCC votes calls to ISP Long Distance" and said to himself, "Hey, better run a story?"
Didja hear the urban legend about the guy who refused to pay his phone bill because he claimed the increased cost of calls to his ISP was an urban legend?
Uh dude, if the date on it is right, that FCC reply was *nine* years ago (???). You think maybe they could've changed their minds since then?
The phone companies are so completely defensive of their dying paradigm that they continually miss new opportunities, and manage to screw up even their existing markets. For instance, its much cheaper for me to place calls on my CDMA phone most of the time than to use pay phones, or even place long distance calls from my home phone. Now they want to spend alot of time and effort redefining what "long distance" means. Gawd. Im glad I sold my telco stock !!!
"In a statement regarding the ruling, the FCC said that Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth did not participate in the vote out of protest over what he contends was the denial of his process rights."
"Furchtgott-Roth questioned whether it is in the public interest to risk Internet access charges"
Be sure to read the article before deciding where to aim your arrows...
The fcc report is at their site:R eleases/1999/nrcc9014.html
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_
It was pretty hard to figure out exactly what they are saying, because of the legalese and telcom terminology, but they keep mentioning
reciprocal compensation.
Does anyone know what that means?
Ya dumbass..
R eleases/1999/nrcc9014.html
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_
That's some urban legend when it makes it all the way to the FCC's homepage!
There is a well-known urban legend that the FCC is considering treating ISP calls like long-distance calls, and putting tariffs on them. This particular Urban Legend, which frequently makes the rounds on Email, has been debunked here:
http://snopes.simplenet.com/s poons/faxlore/congress.htm
So, every time I hear anything about the FCC and charging extra fees for ISP access, I immediately think "oh know. Not this UL again."
- Sam Trenholme
I'll quote from it:
R eleases/1999/nrcc9014.html
"The Commission declared that Internet traffic is jurisdictionally mixed and appears to be largely interstate in nature. But the decision preserves the rule that exempts the Internet and other information services from interstate access charges. This means that those consumers who continue to access the Internet by dialing a seven-digit number will not incur long distance charges when they do so."
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_
A few thoughts on this...
Does this mean Telco's are finally going to acknowledge the fact that their lines are used with modems, and not just to dial into the Bell's ISP service? Will I now be able to call and tell them I am not getting a good connection with my modem at home, and would you please fix it?
Last (and I have done the research), this should make spamming illegal based on the following:
Interstate "calls" that originate from a computer for any purpose are regulated by many FCC reg's. Just as a computer cannot call you for product or service sales, I believe a combination of laws could be used to prove spam violates many FCC reg's as the body of the message is type in by a human operator, but the list is assembled by the computer, and sent by the computer, over an internet connection know regulated as a long-distance phone call.
Any lawyers?
Brian Bartlett
(not a coward, but not quite anonymous)
How 'bout letting networks who route Internet packets through start charging on a per packet basis? Makes about as much sense! Stupid morons. But I agree with the comment above that noted the Corps aren't going to like this, so hopefully this will be overturned quickly. [former lurker]
Yes in 1990 it was a legend. Today it is reality follow the link to the fcc yourself and read the action in their own words. The Horse's Mouth
For those who can't be bothered to read the report:
R eleases/1999/nrcc9014.html
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_
In response to requests by carriers that the Commission clarify how local telephone companies should compensate one another for delivering traffic to Internet service providers, the Commission today concluded that carriers are bound by their existing interconnection agreements, as interpreted by state commissions, and thus are subject to reciprocal compensation obligations to the extent provided by such agreements or as determined by state commissions. The Commission declared that Internet traffic is jurisdictionally mixed and appears to be largely interstate in nature. But the decision preserves the rule that exempts the Internet and other information services from interstate access charges. This means that those consumers who continue to access the Internet by dialing a seven-digit number will not incur long distance charges when they do so.
Heh, simple solution for me.. if they start adding a surcharge onto -MY_ dialup 'net access, I'll just switch the number around.
They can't keep track of which numbers are net access, and which ones aren't. Maybe I'll set up my own private access line with a few friends.
.. You throw some cable to me, I'll throw some to you.. we'll make our own net!
Hey Genius, that URL you sent out has a date of January 1990.... Was the internet and WWW really out back then? So anyway, in 9 years I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess they (the FCC) just might be able to change their mind. Besides, that's based on BBS's not the Internet, big difference. BBS's back then were all? local, unless you had to dial a long distance # for the BBS. This very well could come true, and if it does, the internet will be a very lonely place for some time..... at least when it comes to Dial-Up connections. WE CAN NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! :)
Maybe this is an attempt to circumvent the courts, which consistently stop AT&T from providing local service, limiting AT&T to *long distance* only.
Sooo, if an Internet call is a *long distance* call, then AT&T can service local "Internet Calls" without some Justice of the Peace getting huffy.
Lots of AT&T wireless towers going up in my neck of the woods. And I'm not in AT&T territory.
Who knows, this might lead to some competition with my local TELCO.
Time for my meds
Here's the flaw in your reasoning. They're saying that maybe an ISP is like a voice long-distance carrier. The latter have to pay access charges to the local telephone companies on either end of a call. Since ISPs use business lines which they only have to pay per-minute on dialing out, but people mostly dial in, the telcos claim ISPs aren't paying their fair share to cover the telco's costs. So, the local telcos want the government to allow them to charge obscene per-minute rates just like the currently do to long distance carriers (who pass those, and their own, additional obscenely high rates on to the consumer, of course).
Could this just be an excuse for the Gov. to track each and every packet sent through the internet? Of course it would be in the name of "Accuracy in Billing" legislation or some such nonsense.
I'm trying to wrap my brain around this one. There are at least a couple points of contention about this issue. First of all, local and long-distance telcos have been missing out on a chunk of revenue because of "free" voice-over-IP telephone calls. Second, a local call to an ISP lasts much longer than normal voice calls and puts a greater burden on the local telco's phone network. The FCC's decision applies to a third point: regardless of voice or data or network load, ISP calls are long-distance in nature and can be taxed by the local telephone company for ONLY that reason.
It's similar to the long-distance connection fee you see on your telephone bill every month. The long distance telco doesn't require it, the local telco charges it because the FCC lets them.
If my interpretation is wrong then you can just ignore the rest of this post.
As far as I can tell, there is a case to be made for local telcos to be charging extra for ISP calls. However, the FCC is missing the point entirely. As far as I can tell, the FCC is allowing local telephone compnies to apply a different rate schedule to local telephone calls placed to an ISP, because the bulk of the traffic is ultimately long-distance.
When I call my local ISP, the local telco's responsibility ends when my data leaves its network and enters my ISP's network -- two mutually exclusive networks. The ISP is responsible for funding and maintaining its network and it is completely unreasonable for the local telco to demand a tarrif for use of a network it doesn't pay for.
The way *I* think it should be: If local telephone companies want to charge a per-minute rate, it must apply to ALL calls, not just to an arbitrary local number. "The telephone number xxx-xxxx is an ISP and thus a long-distance carrier so we're gonna charge extra for a call to them, even though its local" is what the FCC is allowing the local telephone companies to claim. They would have at least a leg to stand on if they took a different approach: "Calls over X minutes put a strain on our network, so we're going to charge per-minute fees for them."
Charging extra for a call to another *paying local telephone customer* is arbitrary and should not be tolerated. The FCC missed the boat on the one.
Dave Riesz
Ok, using an analogy akin to what the ISPs do, if I set up 2 phone lines, called from one, and passed it through to the next, to "call local" into another area, I should be surcharged?
What right does the FCC (or anyone, for that matter) have to decide how my phone line should be used? A modem call is NO DIFFERENT than if I were to call up my ISP over a voice phone and hiss into the receiver. (or a friend, or total stranger, etc..) If the telcos want to impose a chanrge, they DAMN WELL BETTER set up a dedicated high-speed network for me to utilize. 'Cuz I'm not gonna tell them which calls I make are modem calls. (and it's illegal to listen in)
Just what do they plan to do if I set up my own private access line to the net? Will they try to impose a tax on me?
sheesh.. now that I think of it, there's no way to inforce this to begin with.
I doubt if they could..
i just want to send a big fat "fuck you" to the fcc.
get a fucking clue.
-pissed off
The internet was developped by ARPA and was sponsored by the defense department.
Long distance for calls to the ISP.
Can't export real data encryption.
Nice country you guys live in...
Oh well, the CRTC will probably try the same stunt.
Hmmm... maybe this will cut the spam a little.
That depends on your Cable ISP. Many (most) Cable ISPs use two-way outside plant and don't need a telco return.
Ovbviously you dont have a cable modem. They
are definately two-way. It's those "DirectPC"
sat based systems that are one-way
But if they act in concert, they can rape us all through the ISPs.
The commissioners took pains to emphasize that their decision would
not affect consumers' Internet phone bills.
"It doesn't affect the way consumers get dialup access to
Internet," said chairman William Kennard. "Nothing we're doing here
should be construed as regulating the Internet."
all of you that posted "cry cry they are gonna chard, F*CK them, etc" are FREAKING DUMBASSES.
i wish people would G R O W T H E H E L L U P
like that one dork "OH YEA MOFO!", what a stupid f*g.
Going cable next week if available :)
:)
Btw if this really does mean users will pay per min - MABYE THE STUPID PHONE COMPANIES CAN GUARANTEE CONNECT RATES NOW!!
If not, then it's fun to vent steam anyways
Dumb morons
i8086/Fishhead
jason.salopek@usa.net
Overregulation?
If you had ever taken any economics courses, you'd realize that for certain classes of business (those with "network" externalities, ie phone company, gas pipeline, electric...) a regulated monopoly is the economically efficient solution.
If some of the readers comments are correct and the telco is allowed to change the way they charge local ISP, they WILL run the local ISP out of business because UW West is itself and ISP. (US West is the Northwest US largest baby bell: Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado)
:/
This is just plain stupid on the FCC's part as more and more telco's are becoming ISP's.
Good way to get a monopoly of ISP's going
So, by your logic, ISPs shouldn't charge any more for a dedicated dialup line than they do for a normal dial in account. And yet, they all do, because it costs them a lot more to provide the dedicated service.
If you read the page I linked to, near the bottom it points out that this decision will not affect how much we pay for internet access, since most states have laws against local phone companies doing so.
The UL is how most people misunderstand the effect of this ruling.
- Sam
Minnesota already does. Everyone gets a 50 hour per month limit on their dial up accounts after that its 4 bucks for each 30 hour block. However, those who inhabit the dorms get free Ethernet connections. The only things MN can get charged additional for (at the moment at least) are the 2000 or so dial up lines. All the ethernet connections go through one of its several big fat pipes.
Ares who is at work, and doesn't have his password.
When you call your ISP, you are taking up an additional line on your local switch but it doesn't work that way at the ISP's end. The ISP is typically connected via. a trunk side digital connection (typically 1 or more T1s) and this doesn't use up any of the "regular" phone lines available through that switch. The "switch" has effectivly been moved onto the ISP's equipment (Ascend boxes etc.) and the ISPs pay through the nose for this service. They also pay plenty for their connection to their ISP/the rest of the net.
Don't believe me? Call your phone company and ask how much it would cost to get a T1 between you and your ISP.
Of course the phone companies won't burden their own consumer ISP service with these costs, they'll pass it on to the independent ISPs that use the local phone system. Perhaps with an eye towards putting them out of business. Obviously, this is not good. My experience has been that the small, independent ISPs are some of the best. Places where there's only a layer or so of tech support between you and the sysops instead of tiers and tiers of useless phone jockeys and PHBs to fight through (like the local phone companies).
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_Rel eases/1999/nrcc9014.html
Has anyone other than me noticed that there has been no hint of possible dates when this change in the system would be implemented nationwide though?
If I understand this issue correctly, the telcos are griping because the ISPs aren't paying local access charges (Like LD companies do) despite causing an enormous amount of traffic on the telco network.
This decision therefore forces your ISP to pay your telco some huge amount of money for each minute every one of you stays dialed in. It doesn't reflect on your monthly phone bill, but your ISP may suddenly stop being flat-rate. You get nailed by the bill no matter which ISP you're using because they're the ones paying and passing the costs on to you.
An immediately obvious fix to this problem is to simply NOT USE the local telco's local network to access the internet. You could go cable or get a leased line run into your house. I'm not sure if DSL would be affected by this decision or not.
Well cable has some issues and leased lines are damn pricey but this MIGHT give rise to a new form of Mom and Pop ISP. All they have to do is move into an area where there are lots of people who want internet access, drop a leased line into a closet somewhere, run some form of networking to nearby people's houses, and volia! Instant high speed internet access with no local access charges.
Then you could hook your quickcam and your microphone up and do video conferencing over the IP network. If this sort of thing caught on in enough places, you might even be able to completely get rid of your local telco because you can do everything you need to over IP.
I know it has already been said, but...I'll participate in this as well. It is entirely thoughtless to charge long distance rates for calls to ISPs simply because the information passed to them goes into other states. If there's a day and time i'm all for an organized expression of opinion.
Pretty good. A few points however. Frequently, ISP's will choose the smaller telco because they're cheaper. Most of the time, you or I use Bell Atlantic or USWest or one of the Baby Bells to dial out. This ruling is allowing BellAtlantic or USWest to charge the smaller telco as if the call were long distance (not the ISP). Of course, the small telco will pass this along to the ISP and it means you won't get unlimited access for less than the cost of the phone line. No this post isnt an approval of the decision, just the truth. The real person to bitch about in this entire fiasco is the judge who broke up AT&T in the 80s. they had the best damn network in the world and someone had to fuck with it.
Ares, who is not anonymous just at work.
There are tons of ordinary people who are sick of
getting their rights trounced upon at every turn.
Could this be what finally pushes people over the edge?
sorry for the AC post...
R eleases/1999/nrcc9014.html
has anyone read:
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_
in it:
But the decision preserves the rule that exempts the Internet and other information services from interstate access charges. This means that those consumers who continue to access the Internet by dialing a seven-digit number will not incur long distance charges when they do so.
++++
Ward Kaatz
ward@halcyon.com
Actually not quite wrong - USW's ISP in on their side of the lines, and as such will not incur any cahrges for call completions that start and end on the USW side fo the circuit. So the USW side gets the unfair advantage due to being associated with the monopoly entity.
This gives USW the ability to squeeze out their competitors and increase their revenue streams at the expense of the newer guys like ICG. Scenario: ICG rep comes in to sell you great fiber based service at a good rate - but cant discount too far due to the completion charges. USW comes in and says - yeah, we cant give you fiber, but you won't have any of those "call completion" charges from 90% of your customers (because we already own most of the customer base due to our years of monopoly operation).
Next, they should start charging extra for teenage callers. Their calling pattern is different too. I would bet that it is not that different from internet calls.
It would become a net-wide effort. Start a website that has a green ribbon or something to the same effect, that others can put on their sites linking back to the central site, which has information about how to contact the FCC.
I would do it but I dont exactly have the means right now.
I live in Boston and I call cambridge with a 7 digit number. Or Brooline, or Arlington.
What the *uck are these ?? Ive heard the hype but where is the service.. none here (damn bell of pa and my crappy cable monopolistic cable company)
If you reactionary idiots would care to go to the FCC link and READ THE FUCKING DECISION, you would see that nothing will change IF YOU DIAL A SEVEN DIGIT NUMBER TO ACCESS YOUR ISP.
Quote from the site: "But the decision preserves the rule that exempts the Internet and other information services from interstate access charges. This means that those consumers who continue to access the Internet by dialing a seven-digit number will not incur long distance charges when they do so."
Get a clue people!
For Ricochet (www.ricochet.net) users in San Francisco, Seattle, and DC, this is a non-issue. In Dallas next month, AT&T will offer a new "fixed wireless" service that will include 512 Kbps Internet access. Live close together? Order up a T1 and link together using cheap wireless like Proxim Symphony cards (www.proxim.com/symphony). Not to mention small ISP's that are innovative enough to offer wireless links to their customers like QueeneAnne.Net in the Seattle area (www.queeneanne.net)
This is actually a good thing - it will accelerate the use of DSL (especially the non-telco vendors), cable modems, satellite systems, and all KINDS of wireless Internet access.
of what once was public property going to private concerns. We paid for it, now we pay for it again.
Everyone knows email is not secure. That is what PGP is for. You act as if this is some kind of new revelation...
woohoo!
Think! Try looking at the end effect:
You wrote:
"clears the way for RBOC's to renegotiate the contract terms with the alternative locval providers"
The rules had been ever thus - calling company pays for the completion. Now that there is competition, the big guys want to change the rules to favor them and squash the competition. Now doesnt that smack of the local monopoly putting the whammy on its new competitors? And in direct contravention to the FCC's charter to "promote competition".
And dont you think that the costs will neccesarily be passed on - and per connect? And wouldnt that mean that customers of an ISP on a competitive LEC to the RBOC from which they are calling would see that rate increase passed to them? And thence go to a cheaper ISP - forcing the business back to the old RBOC with its large MONOPOLY established customer base, decreasing the revenues of the newer LECs, and bolstering the old monopoly companies. The same companies who brought this on themselves with a lack of foresight in planning switch and intra-LATA capacity whilst promoting and selling lots of "secondary" lines - and add in their slowness at moving to digital voice.
Yes, that's IF you only dial a seven digit number. For us in Maryland, DC, Northern Virginia, and Delaware, that excludes us because Bell Atlantic has instituted 10 digit dialing for all local calls.
So those of us complaining are by no means fucking morons.
-Rainfall
rainfa1l@happypuppy.com
We may not incur a *direct* charge from the telco because of this, but if someone higher up has to pay, it will come to the consumer in the end.
That's better than the DC area where you have to dial all 10 digits for a local call no matter what (like calling someone right next door)
Fucking soundbyte culture. Read the entire statement and at least make an honest attempt at understanding its implications.
The sentence you, and many other misguided morons, quoted was probably put there precisely with the intent of disorienting the ignorant, flaming masses.
niemand
please. Oh, and I'll take some more meat based technologies too, thanks.
Granted, I haven't read the language yet. But I don't think this is limited to dial-up access. If the basis of their judgement is that Internet traffic is long distance, it doesn't matter how the end user connects to their provider. POTS, ISDN, *DSL or Cable, there's still a provider on the other end using telco's copper/fiber for their upstream, and it's *that* traffic that's in question. Don't think you're safe from this just because you don't use POTS.
-Laz
So instead of $40 a month you can pay thousands in tuition! ;)
Don't go to postland state university. Only the bottom two floors of the West Shithole apartments are wired. All the East shithole apartments are nicer, but they're not wired. psu has a huge team of morons managing housing. They replaced a perfectly good intercom system with a sentrex system (for opening the door) because of security reasons. The funny thing is, now I can't let people in while I'm on the internet, and the sentrex systems have a gaping security hole that was absent in the previous system. And they could have used that money to wire my apartment, or at least fix the leaks/windows/morons in the office.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE
LOCAL CALLS TO AN ISP ARE LONG DISTANCE
No... In the 310 area code after march, you need
to dial 1-310 to dial any other number in the 310
area code or it'll mess up.
Sure we get cable modem in the small town of Half Moon Bay, CA, but the rates are so unreasonable that not many people would be willing to subscribe. Its over $70 a month here! And thats for a one way (like the Satalite internet, you still need a dialup modem connection for uploads) plus the cost of a cable modem. Outrageous! Even the one dialup ISP in HMB has unreasonable rates. $30/mo for dialup! And that's not even unlimited usage dialup. Fortunatly there local access numbers in the area for other ISPs. DSL has yet to become available.
My ISP's dialin pool is around 15 miles away yet it is in another area code. Ameritech considers the call a local call.. does that mean even though I dial 10 digits it's technically long distance now? :)
Postal mail shows that you made an effort to show you have an opinion. Email shows that you were able to cut and paste from a web site.
Mail, don't email.
not necessarly
There are about 5000 ISPs in the U.S. If some try to bump up their price above $19.95 their customers will go elsewhere.
What's lame about having a choice of gas/electric companies is that everybody will buy their electricity from AmerenUE based in the midwest, and not from their local company. This means electricity prices are gonna go up for us midwesterners.
Is it just me, or do things constantly get worse?
It still costs ISP's a hind leg and a half for good net access. The only party getting screwed is Joe User with his 28.8.
yeah, that is just great, you have to take those of us who live in such out-of-the-way places like Milwaukee into consideration
here cable companies have been stuborn about providing internet cable services and don't have the infastructure as of yet
i was wondering if it would do any good to start some sort of petition to the company
there is, however, dsl access, though they are charging roughly $100/mo for 387kbps access and will not allow you to run an httpd or an ftpd
Let's say I drive to the nearest large airport in my state. Then I get on a plane and fly across country. Do you say that person drove across country? Of course not! Their car took them only to the airport. When you call your ISP your call ends right there. The presuposition that the destination of your call is not local is pure BS. It comes down to this simple fact. The telcos have been trying to make money from modems above and beyong their entitled use of the phone lines (news break: My modem does NOT use the phone any differently than "normal" voice calls. Remember kids, a modem stands for MODulator/DEModulator because it translates signals from data to analog tones and back again). And don't go quoting about how much longer people are online with a modem. If they came out with a ruling stating local calls over x minutes were considered long distance you'd probably be ranting and raving. Anyways, I think it is important to note that the telcos have always failed in the past to get any law past to let them make more money off of modem users (the old court cases about charging BBS' business rates comes to mind). So here we are, with the states shooting down any such laws and a SMALL GROUP OF UNELECTED OFFICIALS comes along and passes a ruling overturning all those other state rulings of the past. This is democracy? You don't have to be a poly sci major to see the problem here...
I guess it would really add up for somebody like me, who likes to download linux distributions over the weekend.
I think the term is mercantile system -- when the government strictly regulates a capitalist free-market system.
WHEW. Oh man you ARE a cure for heart failure.
(Babylon@netroplex.com)
You know, if each time the government did something that even remotely alarmed anybody on /. and there was a huge mailing from millions of people to every government office, they would learn to avoid doing stupid stuff.
Either that, or they'd learn to hide it better, so when all of a sudden you can't call anyone out of earshot, you'll be more suprised.
Not only that, but the feds added in a $1.50 tax to have a second phone line installed on a residential home. They assume it's for a data line and use the $1.50 to help defray the costs of the Internet, or some shit like that.
Take a look at your phone bill if you have two lines, then call up the phone co and ask just what the $1.50 fee is for.
They're not really. The government is starting to treat generation, transport, delivery, etc differently. Some other company may be supplying the gas that you use, but they still have to deal with your friendly local monopoly, because they have the only gas pipe into your house.
http://www.fcc.gov /Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Factsheets/nominute.html
- Sam Trenholme
Different take on it...knew I should wait for the lawyers to 'splain it...kinda makes all this moot, don't it?
8 129.html
http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/1
no it ain't, zippy...read, then act...HAAA HA Ha!!!!
8 129.html
http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/1
Why did you not goto the link and READ the article the FCC posted???
9 99/nrcc9014.html
Go to this URL:http://w ww.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_Releases/1
You will see this in the text: "This means that those consumers who continue to access the Internet by dialing a seven-digit number will not incur long distance charges when they do so."
READ and LEARN about what you posting before you look like a bunch of idiots.
Another thing stupid that the FCC did (IMO, all they do are stupid things) is to charge people who own 800/888 numbers 35 cents ( i think, at one point it was in flux) per call from a pay phone. So gather 9 of your friends, go to a bank of pay phones and each call 1-888-CALL-FCC 10 times each, and try to talk to a person (hint: call between 8am and 5:30pm eastern standard time). If enough people do this, both the complaints and the fees will get them to notice. After all, you and your friends just cost them $35, wait until they get slahsdot'ed. Also snail mail is
FCC
Common Carrier Bureau
Consumer Complaints
Mail Stock Code 1600A2
Washington, DC 20554
Then how did you find out about it?
learn how to read, then read the update on the main page. have a nice day.
They all have nice public email addresses!
It's not unreasonable for ISP calls to be treated differently than voice calls. The usage pattern is different. Telco capacity, etc, is all based on statistical models of call frequency, duration, etc. ISP calls tend to last a lot longer than your average voice call, so the phone company gets screwed. It's not at all unreasonable for them to want to recover the etxra cost.
Long distance is much cheaper with companies like 10-10-321, 10-10-120, and their ilk than it was back in the days of Ma Bell... The thing about networked systems is that the transport mechanism is often very very expensive (ie laying train track, gas lines, or fiberoptic cable)...
Your typical "Mom and Pops ISP" doesnt have to lay the T3, just lease it...
2^5
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
So since a majority of the traffic is internet-bound, I won't be able to access local servers (mail, news, etc.) without incurring extra charges? Brilliant.
any action by the local telephone companies to apply extra charges could inspire a significant shift in local telephone providers.
I was being billed more than $60 per month on my phone line for local charges that was attributable only to my dial in access.
For me the net cost of cable is cheaper and somewhat faster than regular phone connections.
In many areas, this is not an option, however, examine other options, e.g. making a competing long distance provider your local phone company ( after being assured they will not be as stupid !
Begin speaking to these companies now so you can instruct them in the proper competitive stance vis-a-vis the consumer.
We get enough crap with our slow modem connections. The Internet is supposed to be a place where people can do whatever they want. Free speech. Right? Screw the government. It wasn't their idea. Now they want to regulate it. And what will it give them? NOTHING.
I keep reading these comments and considering one peculiar interpretation that comes to mind. Supposing this is _for_ charging really large interstate ISPs? It is unfortunately fantasy, but supposing I call up my local ISP, SoVerNet, which is a 7 digit dialup, and still within that area they tie into the net? Now, suppose I call up a local AOL node, which calls another, which calls another one God knows where, and then ties into the net from a totally different state?
Wouldn't it be interesting if this sort of thing was used to squeeze money out of the hugest ISPs? One thing you can say is, they _have_ the money. We don't- we'll just be forced into silence if we get hit with such charges. Supposing the AOLs of the world have become rich by using these loopholes? It would be very interesting if this development actually _aided_ local ISPs as a phenomenon, and mostly sucked the blood of the overarching, huge ISPs that are so brutal for local operations to compete with. On the one hand, yes yes, evil wicked government is going to lick the hand of the rich corporations and put the hurt on us poor regular folks. On the other hand- who, exactly, has the money in this equation? The rich corporations- and these days it's the Microsofts, the AOLs, etc., and they make it damned tough to maintain a normal capitalism with many players anymore. Wouldn't it be interesting if the government, purely out of self-interest, decided that since these corporations have all the money now, _they_ should be the focus for 'creative fundraising and taxation'?
Just a thought. I'd looooove to see my local ISP untouched, and AOL and MSN etc brutally taxed >:)
I wonder what the real truth will be.
Posted by wfwilson:
No what it will probably mean is your ISP will get the snot charged out of them, then have to pass the charges on to the customers. I work for a small ISP, and this could possibly kill us if it goes the way I think it might. ( God, I hope not!)
This will only help the Telcos in killing out their competiton in the ISP market.
AAAaaarrrggggg!
Posted by Largo_3:
/. the FCC website?
This deserves action by consumer groups, anyone wanna
Posted by Tony Smolar:
I read an article on this a few months back. Here's why the FCC had to rule on this.
If you haven't noticed, everyone seems to be getting into the phone biz these days, the Baby Bells no longer have a monopoly on phone service.
The Baby Bells advocated a "originater pays" policy when dealing with phone connections between providers, so if a MediaOne phone customer calls a Bell Atlantic customer, MediaOne would pay BA for that call. The Baby Bells thought that this would work in their favor.
What happened is the New Guys (the non-baby bells) started signing up a large number of ISPs as customers, since they are on the receiving end of so many phone calls)
So when the Baby Bells noticed that they were paying big bucks to the New Guys because of these ISP calls, they went to the FCC and said "Wah, Wah! They can't do this to us, make them stop, Wah, Wah".
So this decision means that the FCC has sided with the Baby Bells on this one.
It's a bad decision because it will only serve to further protect the Baby-Bell monopolies
UNC has an excellent student network. All the dorms are wired, and the networking staff is highly competent. And look, they've got the site formerly known as sunsite! This uni is definitely worth the money in that regard.
BEAT DOOK!!
Posted by OGL:
I'm only asking because I'm going to be using it this summer once I move out of the dorms. My plan is to hook up an old 486 box as a firewall then ip masquerade to my Linux box and my roommate's Win98 machine. Will they do the service hookup if I'm connecting it to a linux machine?
-W.W.
They get "screwed" only in the sense that they make a ridiculous profit instead of an amazingly ridiculous profit. Their cost per call is miniscule, even considering the different usage patterns. Chalk one up to the lobbyists...
-Doug
... I'm glad I call into work for Internet access. Next they'll be saying that calls to a radio station are long distance too since your voice can be broadcast further than your local calling area.
If the phone companies or ISPs end up paying more, you think they won't pass those costs along to us?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Actually, there is a reason that the telcos were forced to open their markets to newcomers. They were monopolies. They control an essential facility. They have to provide access to that facility for a fee. What happened here is that the telcos are getting rid of the newcomers that came in and used the telcos' own "reciprocal compensation" rules against them. This means that the ISPs that were getting the cut-rate deals from these companies will now end up paying the full rate that the telcos charge. You still think you won't see a price increase?
As usual, anyone in possession of a bigger clue than myself is welcome to correct this post. We all need to quickly learn what really happened and what it will ultimately mean to us. This post reflects my current understanding of the situation, which is always open to adjustments. :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Wow. Took 18 minutes for someone to get it right.
Though I suppose most of the replies were from
Canadians, and they maybe can be forgiven. I
must've missed this the other 2 times it hit
slashdot. Comes up often enough on all the
mailing lists I'm on...
The FCC sucks ass.
The call I make to my ISP is local.
Period.
The ISP has commincation lines that could be subject to interstate FCC regs, but my phone call is still LOCAL.
I heard about the billing problems arising with ISP's and telco's and how the telco's pay each other for calls that use both of their equipment. I can see why that may have to change, but their method of classifing ISP calls as long distace is wrong.
What is the tax on long distance calls that they're now applying to ISP calls? It comes out to a few dollars on an itemized long distance bill. Most phone companies build the tax into their long distance charges.
Connellsville, Scottdale, and Mt. Pleasant have cable modems too...from a different ISP than Uniontown. For being backwater southwestern PA, there sure is a lot of high tech activity. I guess mountain folk just like their porn.
Come on... They may have more traffic now, but they have better technology to handle it. And they are selling additional services now that they never offered before. I have a damn hard time believeing thier going broke because of the Internet!
So, now they sold everyone a second line, thier going to charge them per minute to actually use that second line??!?!! You can BET people will flock to cable modem. And if you don't get Cable modem yet (like me), just place a weekly phone call to your cable company (mine is TCI) asking them "is cable modem avaliable yet" (I know the answer is no, but I want to be honest in my effort to let them know I want it, and I wanna know as soon as I can get it.)
Now what about bbses? I know they're really not too popular, but this could bring them back. Specially with those of us that have sdsl or the likes. Somebody can set their network up for friends to connect to the internet via a SLIP connection, and how will the isp know that my phoneline is being used to access the internet for my friends? Either way i need to go look for Exitialus (sp?) It's been way too long.
<happiness>beer</happiness>
If these are local calls that go from one telco to another one, the originating telco pays the completing telco.
If these are called long distance calls, the originating telco does not pay the completing telco.
And there is a welfare program for suburbanites and farmers in there that might be affected, too.
Sorry, that answer is incorrect. We have some lovely parting gifts. :)
The decision that the FCC handed down is NOT a modem tax, it's a regulation on how billing of calls to ISPs are handled between telcos. It does not say that ISPs are going to charge/minute of connection. It only involves contracts between telcos, and reciprocal billing between telcos for completing a connection across telephone infrastructures. Normally, "local" calls do not involve reciprocal charges, since it's assumed that there will be an equal number of calls in each direction; therefore only the call source's telco pays for completing the connection. Not so for ISPs, and long distance, where the number of calls varies so the telcos involved split the charges. It also is counter to the ruling several states made, which states that such calls should be treated as local (i.e. no reciprocal billing).
Unfortunately, this'll probably end up as a surcharge to an ISP's monthly rates, so it's the consumer who's going to get screwed in the end. Business as usual, I guess...
-cfw
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
Thank goodness I have a cable modem, because if I had to put up with something like this, it would really suck. For those people who have available broadband access, but haven't jumped on board because of costs, this could make switching a whole lot more attractive.
You know, I used to be all for capitalism, but anymore it seems like everyday I get hit with one more illustration of why it's not a good idea. Not quite sure what could effectively replace it, but it apparently is NOT working for the benefit of the majority of us.
Shawn Asmussen
WTF are you talking about? Of course you're connected whenever it's on. How the fuck do you expect it to work? If you can't cope w/ securing it then unplug the damn ethernet cable unless you want to connect.
What I don't understand is why you are all making such a fuss about it. This is the daily bread for internet users in other parts of the world, I mean.. if you want something good, you PAY for it. The capitalists you claim you are should damn well follow your capitalistic spirit and pay for your phonerate and be happy about it. Freebies are for communists! YES I consider $20/month or whatever the phonecompany bills you A FREEBIE if you get local calls for free.
Then again most of you don't think that far ahead, paying the phonecompany could help YOU in the future.
Who knows, maybe Europe will take the lead in internet usage when the Americas lose their advantage. At least I'll be hoping that this reduces bandwidth-wasting JUNK on the Net.
not my country, ergo not my problem.
I could be wrong but I think everyone may be misinterpreting this one. My understanding was this moves calls through your local telco to your ISP into the same classification as a call through your telco to a long distance provider, it does NOT make the calls long distance, it just lets telcos choose to bill ISP's for the traffic they cause, which they won't necessarily do. Any telco that has its own internet service would be shooting themselves in the foot since they'd have to bill the usage back to themselves at the same rate.
I can spend $25 a month and get unlimited calls on Sprint on the weekends, so the rates telcos are charging long distance companies for access through their CO's can't be that high.
I also think that billing in that manner to an ISP would mean that they can't charge for the line itself into the ISP but I could be wrong about that. If an ISP is paying $40 a month per line or circuit on a T1, then usage charges might not be much more per line except in unusual cases.
If that's the case, and this is really what the classification change means then I'd guess only very high usage people even have a chance of being affected. And someone who really has a valid reason to tie up their internet line 16 hours a day ought to have enough reason to pay $300 or $400 a month for a frame relay connection if cable, xDSL or other technology isn't available.
Anyone know anything more specific about this?
Come on people, lets make some effort to understand the issue before spouting off on it. Admittedly I didn't read the FCC release before posting my last comment on this, but what I said in it was essentially correct.
:)
This has *nothing* to do with making ISP calls long distance, it just a simple ruling allowing telcos to choose if they desire to set up a reciprocal billing arrangement with ISPs (presumably larger ISPs) within their service area that they are providing lines to.
This doesn't mean you get billed per minute, it just means they have flexibility in how they choose to bill the line usage to the ISP.
They can, for example, class the incoming lines as inter-carrier lines, allowing them to be billed for usage rather than end-point charges.
And its not a requirement its just a clarification of their position on it. If I run fiber between two cities myself (ie, I own the fiber and I'm leasing the pole or line space underground) then I typically need those sort of reciprocal agreements with the carriers who are going to gateway traffic to my line in both terminating ends.
I don't think this is nearly as big of a deal as people have been making it out to be for the last six months that the rumor about this was going around. Some telcos may choose to gouge ISPs with these prices, but most probably won't charge anything. The release also made it seem like the actual situation would be based on the way existing reciprocal agreements within the state are handled.
I still wish I didn't need to use a telco though
At least when I worked for a regulated utility (not telecom admittedly), our charter of service included an obligation to serve. Not an obligation to serve based on certain historical usage patterns that tended to maximize our profit: just a plain old obligation to serve. If usage patterns changed (and they did), we also had the obligation to figure out how to meet the new pattern and still make a profit. If we could convince the regulatory body that a rate increase was justified to handle that, great. If not - belt tightening time.
Also, if a telco make the "changing usage pattern" argument, it also opens itself up to the "what is your profit margin on T1 service today as compared to 10 years ago" question. Oddly enough no one at the Baby Bells seems real anxious to take on that question.
sPh
To quote From http://w ww.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_Releases/19 99/nrcc9014.html FCC ADOPTS ORDER ADDRESSING DIAL-UP INTERNET TRAFFIC
/. that is substantially wrong.
This means that those consumers who continue to access the Internet by dialing a seven-digit number will not incur long distance charges when they do so.
Generally, new entrants to the local telephone business contend that calls to ISPs are local traffic and, therefore, subject to reciprocal compensation. Incumbent local telephone companies, on the other hand, generally contend that calls to ISPs are interstate in nature and that they are, therefore, beyond the scope of reciprocal compensation agreements.
This is the second story in a row that has been posted to
I agree! Where is the F*cking Service?? In New York, Time Warner (the cable TV equivalent of Microsoft) doesn't offer Cable modem access. RCN is here, but they don't provide Cable TV or Modem services outside of Manhattan.
Where I live in Queens, Bell Atlantic doesn't offer DSL, Only ISDN, which would cost me somewhere around $450 to get it installed, and about $30-$40 extra on top of my monthly phone bill.
I'm so jealous of some of my co-workers who have ADSL where they live in (Northern) New Jersey.
I'm still chugging along at 33.6 waiting.....
Do not read this
FCC announcement, I quote a piece of it here:
This was available from the index page of the FCC
website. It appears that this is aimed at the
baby bells and such, rather than us poor bandwidth
sucking Slashdot Longhairs.
This is something we don't need. Unless, of course, we want to limit information and access to free speech to only those above a certain income level. Honestly, I already pay for my phone. How many times do they need to charge me for the same service?
Reference the ZDNET article that I sent to Rob yesterday: Privacy Concerns Over TCI@Home
1) Gather information.
2) Process information (ie. think)
3) React/Speak.
So who's gonna orgainize it? I can host if somebody else wants to set a date. When's the date that this thing is likely to start having an impact. It should be done before then, of course. But then... hasn't it already gone into effect? Either way, we'd need at least a month in which to publiscize and get everything/everyone orgainized.
It could be like the refund day on a whole different level.
Anyway, I do not have the time to do this all on my own but I'd love to help out. Somebody mail me and/or set up a mailing list (or just keep up this thread) and maybe we can get something rolling.
Screw the government. It wasn't their idea.
Umm.. While I may aggree with you that this aint' great, I've got to nitpick here and point out that actualy it was the government's idea. Didn't the Internet start with ARPAnet?
I hope everybody here who'd taken the time to complain about this here has also taken the time to do so where it counts. If you live in America, let these people know what's up!
But, as I'm sure you've all heard before with things like this, flames don't help causes. They only hurt them. Be polite, explain the situation and your distaste for it. Not knowing all the ramifications of their descision I didn't even ask them to overturn it, merely to reword it in such a way that phone companies are not given the ability to charge for services that they are not rendering.
Mail them. Now.
Don't be Stupid. You do that and any positive reaction that we could hope for goes out the window.
Think about it. FCC person finds his net access screwed or his emailbox bombed. What's he going to say? "Gee, a bunch of script kiddies are being dicks. I should rethink that whole long distance announcement".
For the love of whatever you love, don't do this.
The FCC people's email addresses were posted earlier. DO IT.
Need I say? This could blow... a lot. However, there's a couple of things to be considered here: If phone carriers decide to start charging per-minute rates on Internet access, all it would take is one upstart company who decides *not* to do so and they could have customers beating down the door, so maybe it won't fly AND could give new companies a foot in the door.
What really sucks here is that fact that, while the data does travel a long distance, IT DOES NOT DO IT VIA THE PHONE COMPANIES EQUIPMENT. The high-capacity data lines that an ISP uses, afaik could be laid by any number of comanies. Aside from that, it eventualy gets to a backbone provider which (again afaik) has nothing to do with the phone company and that's where most of the long distance travel comes in, right?
The phone company would be charging for the use of equipment that is not theirs! Unless I'm seriously wrong with my reasoning (please point it out if I am) how could anybody even consider that acceptable?
Personally, I think that if they catch wind of this, they'll set up something to filter email or change the email address temporarily...
Does the FCC have a habit of posting 'Urban Legends' on their webpage?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
You know, I used to like this country. Don't get me wrong, I'm patriotic, I respect the foundations that America has been built on. However, I no longer respect the people put in charge to enforce those foundations. The society we live in is now revolving around the dollar. It's now gotten to the point where even the Government doesn't care about the people, but are only interested in getting a hefty paycheck.
The way I see it, is that the FCC has a theroritical monopoly over communication in the United States. Granted, this is a Federal bureau, however If the FCC was a business (which it looks to me like that's what it has turned into) this would constitute a monopoly. They are THE Federal Communications Commission. There is no alternative to them. You are Forced to abide by what they say and that's it. (This also brings up the point of multiple governments, but that's stupid, so let's not get into that. This is an EXAMPLE.)
Just my opinion here. I think it's bullshit what the FCC is trying to pull. Time to get your word processor out and start writing bitch letters. I Intend to do so. Peace.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Down with the FCC! Down with the FCC! Down with the FCC! Down with the FCC! Down with the FCC! Down with the FCC!
i rember this same sorta thing being pulled back in the prime of the BBS days, they wanted to make calling a BBS like a long distance number. as phone companies said that the calls were using thier equptment too much or some crap. all i see are money hungry bastards. good thing im moving to ADSL
-magister-
*cough* you mean DARPA, the D (for defense)
was later dropped to help public relations.
Can't forget that the military was
a big player in the development of the net.
Exactly! If the FCC is going to be shortsighted enough to push Internet users into the hands of the cable industry then so be it, but they have to shut the hell up about it when they p*ss away their revenue stream.
Go figure.
This is not a matter of the phone companys charging ISPs or local users LD rates. This effects the money that competing local telephone providers (like BellSouth and e.spire) pay to each other when people make local calls that go to another phone provider. They don't pay each other to connect long-distance calls, so this actually is a reduction in the fees paid by local carriers to each other.
I'm glad I moved to Canada 6 months ago. The currency rate/economy might be bad, but this is worth it.
-Laxative
News.com also ran this story, http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,32789,00.html?st .ne.fd.mdh , they have a better summary of what it will effect. Here is a bit of that story.
----
At stake are millions of dollars per year paid to small telephone companies under contracts dubbed "reciprocal compensation."
The contracts govern who pays who when a customer makes a call. If a Bell Atlantic customer calls an e.spire communications customer under this system, Bell Atlantic would pay e.spire for completing that call.
When these contracts were signed, largely in the wake of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, local phone companies thought they would come out ahead since they controlled the vast majority of local phone lines.
But many small phone companies began signing up ISPs for service. The ISPs receive many calls, but place very few--resulting in the imbalance that favors the small telcos.
The Baby Bells and GTE have pressed the FCC to rule that calls to ISPs are long distance, since this would exempt the calls from the reciprocal compensation contracts.
----
They also note though that this could eventually mean bad news for consumers. Again from the article
----
But the decision was made under protest by one commissioner, who has argued that it could inadvertently open up the possibility for courts to impose per-minute access charges on ISPs.
Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth had asked to delay the decision by at least another three weeks to study this issue. But Kennard denied that request, saying commissioners had already waited too long.
"I believe that part of operating efficiently is being decisive," Kennard said. "We owe the marketplace a decision."
----
Duh...the flat rate for telecommunications is one of the prime reasons the Internet is such a success in the U.S.
Also, this threatens to further enlarge the gap between the technological haves from the havenots.
I wonder how much the bribe was...
From the FCC Web site:
The Chairman and the
Commissioners invite you to contact them via Email at the following addresses:
Chairman William Kennard: wkennard@fcc.gov
Commissioner Susan Ness: sness@fcc.gov
Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth: hfurchtg@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Gloria Tristani: gtristan@fcc.gov
We have run into the results of this already with GTE. GTE has declared us to be an IXC (Inter-eXchange-Carrier) and has prohibited us from purchasing any services that are local-tarrifs, including partial T1 circuits. I have 25 partial T1's already, but I can't purchase any more period. I can't move them, I can't change them, I can't touch them at all except to pull them out.
.03/minute = $2,610.00/day * 30 days per month = $78,300 per month in usage. No ISP in existance can afford to absorb those charges and still provide flat rate. Assuming a 10:1 user ratio, the ISP should have 1000 customers. The average customer would have a $79 usage portion of their bill along with the standard $20 base rate.
This ruling says that you can't be charged long distance on your PHONE BILL. However, the telco can go to court now and claim that since the FCC declared ISPs to be IXC's, they should be charged the same as Sprint, MCI, or other long distance carriers for each minute of access that the ISP uses on the TELCO network. Based on an ISP with 100 phone lines:
100 lines * 60 minutes= 6,000 line-minutes per hour
6,000 line-minutes * 5 hours of peak time (6pm-11pm) = 30,000 line minutes for peak
50% usage for the rest of the day, 3,000*19=57,000 line minutes non-peak
57,000+30,000=87,000 line minutes *
This ruling doesn't do the above, it just opens to door for a future COURT case to open it. This is a form of incrementalism. These rulings are only the opening moves on a chess board. Once the pieces are in place, one move and checkmate.
Not good.
Dan
The exemption that you are describing was put in place in the late 80's or early 90's. At the time, it was felt that modems and other data communications services needed to be protected. Since then, the telcos have been working to remove this restriction. Since Reed Hunt left the FCC, along with 5 other members of the FCC board, the FCC has been more than happy to do what ever the telco's want. There is NO leadership at the FCC at this time. They are only reacting to what is placed before them.
I realise that before the per-minute charges go into effect, congress will probably pass a law, but with all of the money the telcos can spread, do you think it will be able to get through congress?
What appears to be the intention of the ruling is to protect telephone companies from the competition posed by email and other forms of internet communication, such as internet telephony. It is unclear how the public interest is served by this ruling.
Why is the FCC chartered to "encourage competition"? I can only guess at the original intent of the charter, but my suspicion is that it is because competition is a reliable method of ensuring the highest quality of goods and services at the lowest price, consistent with the other goal "to protect the public interest".
By artificially raising the entry barrier to the internet for no good reason, this ruling also discourages advancement in the communication arts, by reducing the accessibility of the internet to those who would otherwise work as hobbyists to develop software and user interfaces, or act as testers for such developers.
The FCC should either change its mission statement to accurately reflect its updated(?) mission or it should act in accordance with the mission statement under which it was originally instituted.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
From the FCC Press Release: "FCC ADOPTS ORDER ADDRESSING DIAL-UP INTERNET TRAFFIC FCC Lets States Decide Whether Existing Interconnections
I personally don't understand the implications of this ruling at all. But, you can still lobby your state PUC memberst to make sure that no decision is made that would raise the cost of Internet access (and I'm not sure if this decision will).
However, if you live in a payola backwater (many state PUCs are just Bell front organizations), too bad for you.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
It really has nothing to do with ISPs. It has to do with reciprocal payments that phone companies must pay each other to use each others equipment/lines. The only "ISPs" it actually affects are the ones that are also phone companies and it only affects them in that their deal isn't as sweet as it was before.
It's amazing how many knee-jerk reactions a "news" posting like this can generate on slashdot. Rob even seemed to get a little knee-jerky himself. I am usually more impressed with his style then that. I am disappointed.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
that if the ISP crosses a state line (as mine does) between their local dial-up and their main center, then the ISP will incur a long-distance charge... Which I'm sure they're more than happy to pass onto their subscribers.
Now, if the ISP has a leased line, and the cost doesn't increase.. GREAT! But no business is going to eat a cost increase in favor of it's customer.
Just as with the cigarette tax, it's the customer that will end up paying the difference.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
The link you put up was to something talking about modem taxes. This isn't a modem tax. This is about treating local calls to an ISP as long distance calls.
Maybe you should read the article before calling us all morons, hmm?
Common sense is what tells you the world is flat.
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/News_Rel eases/1999/nrcc9014.html
Try reading the report.
This is not about ISP's or internet access, it is about phone companies. When a new telco comes into a local area and competes for local service, they sign agreements to pay each other for compleeting local calls. So, I'm in Bell Atlantics region (ick) and joeblow phone company offers alternative local service. When I call somebody joeblow telco provides service for, from a Bell Atlantic serviced phone , Bell atlantic pays joeblow a certian amount for compleeting the call. When someone using joeblow calls a bellatlantic customer, joeblow pays Bell At. for completion.
Some of the compeeting telco's got the bright idea to market to ISP.s, who don't make many cals, but get a lot. So, the RBOC's end up paying out loads of cash to the competitor, who does not pay them much since it's customers are not making calls.
This ruling is about that. By determining that calls to ISP's are mixed in nature, and subject to federal jurisdiction (rather than that of lacal Public Utility COmmissions) they FCC clears the way for RBOC's to renegotiate the contract terms with the alternative locval providers that are making a lot of moneyu out of a loophole.
This has jack to do with your access.
The really wonderfull thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.
Were you born this stupid and ignorant, or did you have to work at it?
Go read what it says. read it. figure out what it really means, then eat the working end of a 12 gauge.
There cannot be any per minute or per call cost passed along to the consumer or ISP. Hell, the decision is highly prelim,and does not even decide the issue in favor of the RBOC's, you stupid twat, it simply passes the ball back to the local PUC's, and indicates that some level of Federal jurisdiction may end up existing. That's all.
So, while you are hiding under your bed from the white van's and black helicopters, try learning a littel bit about how things really work.
The really wonderfull thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.
about the bad things your dad has been doing to you in bed at night, but that's no excuse for rampant stupidity.
This decision is about reciprocation betwen phone companies. It's not anythingthat will have zip to do with end users. In this, the ISP is as much of an end user as you are.
Look sweety, if you get out of high school, mybe one day you will learn what all the big hard words mean, and how things work out in the wolrd. 'till then, I hope you keep dad happy so you can keep playing on his WebTV.
The really wonderfull thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.
The Philadelphia area will also soon be 10 digits. It's really funny, they split up the 215 area code a few years ago into 610 and 215 saying the new numbers would last another 30 years. It's been about 6 and they are almost out. So now we get two new area codes AND 10 digit phone numbers. Go progress.
-matt
Then make up your own mind.
Name a long distance telco company (at least in the US) that *DOESN'T* provide internet access? Right, all the big long distance telco's already make extra money off of internet calls, especially since lots of them bill with obscene hourly rates. Also, how will they define 'ISP'? If my neighbor has a cable modem, or other high speed access system, and I agree to pay for part of his ISP bills if I can dial up my hypothetical 56K modem to his machine to get on the net, is the call between us now going to be billed long distance because he is providing me with internet access?
-Cheetah
This doesn't sound like a decision on long-distance from a user's point of view. It sounds like the old argument about under what circumstances, when a caller on Telco A's network places a call to someone served by Telco B, B owes A for routing the call to them. Also, according to the ruling, the existing agreements on reciprocal compensation still apply and the state PUC still has the final say in the matter. Sounds like a lot of uproar over very little.
Like I really need any more reason to go with a cable modem! The fact that modems are so SLOW is reason enough!!!
Unfortunately, I would have to move to do it! Since cable modem connections probably won't be in my town for several years....ugh.
http://www.techweb.com/news/stor y/TWB19990225S0011
[ Aaron Shaver ] [ ultravoid@usa.net ]
Aaron J. Shaver - aaronshaver@yahoo.com "Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do." --Bertrand Russel
--snip--
those consumers who continue to access the internet by dialing a seven-digit number will not incur long distance charges when they do so
--snip--
It's a good thing that these charges will actually apply to the ISP not the end user. In the Chicagoland area people will soon have to dial the full ten-digit number to call the nieghbors.
Of course the ISPs will probably raise rates if this ends up costing them money. If the rates get to high.
More reason to get DSL or Cable. DSL is getting cheap out here anyway.
Something not many people know. In the UK, there are no such things as free local calls. Our main telco, BT, charges approx 4 pence per minute weekdays, 1.5 pence at night, and 1 pence per minute. But on the plus side, the UK has, say, 20 free ISPs (free as in FREE, all you pay is the local calls). There is some benfit in this for the low internet user, but you guys should stop complaining like it is your right. The charges should reflect network usage.
:)
Oh yeah, sorry if this has all been said before, I don't have time to read 100+ comments - I'm paying for it all
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
From your house is the local-loop, the only dedicated line you have. From the first phone switch, your calls are routed onto a limited number of lines to central switches. Suppose there's a few hundred customers on the switch, they have maybe a couple o' dozen lines out the back. It's called circuit-switching.
The average length of a voice call is about 6min, so the many->few reduction worked until ISP calls went up to many hours long. In some parts of the country, you can't make a local call at peak net surfing times.
The technology to alleviate the problem exists. You simply use the SS7 (inter-switch) protocol to recognize a call to a modem and terminate the call in a virtual modem in the local switch. Then, the IP traffic can be packet-switched to whomever it's directed.
Your phone company is not interested in a solution, they just want more money and are using this as an excuse.
It's like smart-cards - no reason for the banks to issue them, they just jack-up interest rates on everyone else to pay for fraud. In Europe, where people use debit cards and don't run up bills, they issue smart cards. Smart, huh?
In reading the entire text of the Press Release several unobvious items came to mind. [Please comment if you are reading something different into the texts]. First, it basically left intact whatever agreements had been previously reached between ISP's and phone companies -- regarding the rates they charge each other, or as regulated by state commissions. Which I think means that it preserves alot of the status quo.
Where it seems dangerous is that (quoting) "a state commission, in the exercise of its statutory authority under sections 251 and 252 of the Act to arbitrate interconnection disputes, may have imposed reciprocal compensation obligations for this traffic." And check this out: "Resolution of failures to reach agreement on inter-carrier compensation for interstate ISP-bound traffic then would occur through arbitrations conducted by state commissions, which are appealable to federal district courts.
Just what we need. A bunch of bureaucrats and attorneys haggling over what is essentially the future of the Internet here in the US.
Finally, it also acknowledged that there needs to be a better federal law governing the Internet than the one they are operating under. So it seems to me that aside from the obvious rant to the FCC, we Internet users and all of the ISP's here in the USA really need to concentrate their lobbying efforts and resources on making sure that local public service commissions and Congress do the right thing for the little folks for a change.
Let's all work this one to death, folks.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
From CNET's coverage:
The commissioners took pains to emphasize that their decision would not affect consumers' Internet phone bills.
"It doesn't affect the way consumers get dialup access to Internet," said chairman William Kennard. "Nothing we're doing here should be construed as regulating the Internet."
God forbid that you should live off campus, where *you* are responsible for your own housing, rather than complain about the people who manage the housing you chose to live in.
-The Cheese
I would have very little problem with this if everybody had the same cable deal. The problem is some of us are being held hostage by our cable companies. The cable industry is worse than Microsoft!! The cable industry is by far the most corrupt industry in America. I hope I'm offending people. Why should I be charged this rate when I have no other option but dial-up ISP. It will make dial-up ISP more money than cable modems. This penalizes people whose cable companies are treating them like crap and won't give them cable modems. This is an outrage!!! Now I'm going to flame my cable company until they install cable modems. Of course we are the lowest priority for them of their districts and don't even have a contract. We won't be getting cable until at least 2001, while all the people in surrounding districts already have them. This is an outrage!!!
I agree this is an outrage if you can't get a cable modem. They'll be charging people who are being screwed by their cable companies more money than those who are getting good deals.
Bribes. Oh sorry, "Campaign contributions."
AT&T et al. bribe Congress, who funds the FCC. If the bribes dry up, so does the funding. On the other hand, maybe the FCC has decided that cablecos are the future, and figures they'll bribe Congress even more than the telcos.
Sure, if you don't mind giving up your privacy to email, having your email address given to spammers, and having your Internet usage and selections tracked and profiled. Reference the ZDNET article that I sent to Rob yesterday: Privacy Concerns Over TCI@Home Um...not all of us use @home. Check that e-mail address up there...rr.com is RoadRunner. And do you not realize that *all* ISPs can monitor you in this manner? You use their servers, so what you xmit and receive are fair game. And you consent to it when you sign up. Stop your bitching...if you don't want to be tracked, you can try to hunt down an ISP who explicitly states that it will *never* follow your activities. You'll find this nearly impossible. Mike
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Mike
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
All the more reason to go with a cable modem.
Linux: Because rebooting is for adding new hardware.
I don't see the point. Does anyone have any intelligent opinions as to why this decision was made? Is the only possible conclusion that of bribery?
Makes me glad I live on campus... Ah... ethernet...
I don't see that the FCC ruling has any effect on my tuition... My school has something on the order of two T3's to Sprintlink, with three T1's on MCI, and another totally seperate connection to the Internet2. No phone calls involved!
That's not to say they won't raise tuition, just that it won't have anything to do with this...
At least mine is. Upstream is "only" 128k, tho'.
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
If you go to the fcc's website it doesn't suck as much as you first think. The suckiness begins if you dial more than 7 digits to access your isp. So this means all local isp's are unaffected, so if you dial a local isp (7 digit dialing) they cannot assess long distance charges, it states it right in the press release, so at least i can still have my cheap internet access yay
If you read the text of the actual document, other than letting the state commissions make their own rules, there is nothing too sinister here. The FCC is actually CLOSING a way for the RBOCs to charge extra for ISPs.
Long Distance charges, if any, come from a long distance company. So, if you get any new charges for "Long Distance" internet access, they would have to be implimented by your own ISP. We'll see if that happens.
Illegitimi non carborundum
Shucks, leave it to the FCC to ruine my day. Guess I'll just have to get a cable modem...wait, they dont offer them in my area. 'Tupid backwoods of Louisiana =\
"Like a feindish tropic virus" -KMFDM
Ultimately these new regulations will increase costs to local ISP's phone bills and will have to be passed along to the consumer. Switching to cable modems for fast access will help eliminate the local ISP's as well. When our only choice is cable or DSL from the local telco the rates will go through the roof. Local ISP's have always held the cost of Internet access down and when the competition is gone I expect to see a bill for monthly data transfer which would eliminate Net access for most of us! Start thinking about microwave horns, 256K and no wires or modems. You will still be able to choose your ISP which will keep competition alive and your flat rate access will continue.
no, you are wrong. it will be labeled long distance, but we wont be charged. damn i hate these idiots who know nothing and post. btw, i know cause my brother works for my isp.
he who has the fastest cart always has the best lie.
no, the person will switch isp's and get a cable modem, all the isp's offering dialup only will die. but don't worry this isn't what you people think, you wont get charged for the calls to your isp. sheesh.
he who has the fastest cart always has the best lie.
why don't you goto news.com (a real news site), they explain it in lamens terms.
:>
he who has the fastest cart always has the best lie.