[107259] in Cypherpunks
RE: Internet = LD Call?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (bill.stewart@pobox.com)
Thu Jan 7 18:13:51 1999
From: bill.stewart@pobox.com
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 14:32:17 -0800
To: "Cypherpunks" <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>
X-UPAS-Original-From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <5F152E6E8E6FD21195DF00104B2425AD02B40E@YARROWBAY>
Reply-To: bill.stewart@pobox.com
At 03:33 PM 1/5/99 -0800, Matthew James Gering wrote:
>No Tim, not for accessing stuff on the Internet, for access *to* the
>Internet [via PSTN].
>The LECs, *not* the IXCs, have been clamoring for the FCC to allow them to
>charge ISPs per minute charges for access to their network the same way they
>charge the IXCs.
Some of the LECs were already doing this just for basic Internet access,
but the current push is aimed at the IP telephony service provider businesses,
specifically Qwest (and the smaller international-focused carriers)
which use local phone calls, often flat-rate, to reach a gateway,
dial some accounting digits and the destination, and get hauled across
an IP network (generally a private intranet, often compressed)
to the destination, where they're also delivered cheaply.
The LECs are arguing that this is really no different from using an IXC
that hauls phone calls around with circuit-switching instead of IP.
>It's old very old news, and it'll never happen. ISPs are exempt the same way
>that paging companies are exempt, and they won't get those regs changed.
Regular ISPs may not get hit with this, but I'm not so sure about
the voice ISPs. The economics have been sufficiently distorted in the past
by telecom pricing and regulation that this is quite disruptive.
Theoretically, voice compression lets you radically reduce costs
of hauling voice long distances, and IP can potentilly simplify the
switching process, but in practice the big economic advantage of the
IP telephony business is eliminating the per-minute LEC access charges.
The LECs are a big enough lobby they might have a chance of winning;
the alternative may be big changes in local telephone pricing,
like message-units for everybody, increased charges for T1 and
higher trunks to all destinations, higher flat monthly rates, or
some other alternative to make up for the current settlements subsidy.
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
