[127539] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Finland makes broadband access a legal right
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Holmes,David A)
Fri Jul 2 10:34:15 2010
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 07:33:55 -0700
In-Reply-To: <alpine.GSO.2.00.1007020946330.9306@clifden.donelan.com>
From: "Holmes,David A" <dholmes@mwdh2o.com>
To: "Sean Donelan" <sean@donelan.com>,
<nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Does a "... certain inventor of the Internet ..." refer to the High
Performance and Communications Act of 1991, also known as the "Gore
Act"? The 1991 Act, based on a study by Dr. Leonard Kleinrock ("Towards
a National Research Network") created the commercial Internet that we
know and work with today.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Donelan [mailto:sean@donelan.com]=20
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 7:22 AM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Finland makes broadband access a legal right
On Thu, 1 Jul 2010, William Herrin wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Gadi Evron <ge@linuxbox.org> wrote:
>>
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/07/01/finland.broadband/index.html?
hpt=3DT2
>
> In the US, the Communications Act of 1934 brought about the creation
> of the "Universal Service Fund." The idea, more or less, was that
The Universal Service Fund was created as a result of the Bell divesture
in 1984; and extended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It didn't=20
exist before then. There was the Kingsbury Agreement in 1913 (One=20
System, One Policy, Universal Service), but universal service didn't
mean=20
the same thing. Universal service meant if you had a phone, it could
call=20
any other phone; but there wasn't a goal of a phone in every house until
the 1960s.
> every phone line customer contributed to the fund (you'll find it
> itemized on your phone bill) and the phone companies had to charge the
> same for every phone line regardless of where delivered in their
> territory but when initially installing an unusually difficult
> (expensive) phone line the phone company was entitled to reimburse its
> cost from the fund.
As part of the natural monopoly, there was a system of rate averaging
and=20
settlements. But there was often radically different prices based on=20
public policy goals, for example business phone users paid more and=20
residential phone users paid less. Long distance prices were kept high=20
in order to keep monthly residential bills low. Its very difficult to=20
maintain public policy price differentials in a competitive environment;
but it was also difficult to maintain those prices even in a monopoly=20
environment.
The early ARPANET/Internet indirectly benefited from some of those
public
policy pricing decisions in the US.
> In 1996 a certain inventor of the Internet decided that the universal
> service fund needed to pay for PCs in rural schools (the "E-Rate"
> program) instead of improving rural communications...
The 1996 Universal Service Fund also expanded who paid into the fund.
If=20
the Universal Service Fund is expanded again to pay for "broadband," the
biggest question is how will the "contribution base" be expanded to pay
for it?
