[9760] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: bill summary Telecommunications Act
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (thosstew@aol.com)
Wed Jan 19 21:27:28 1994
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From: thosstew@aol.com
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Reply-To: <thosstew@aol.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 21:26:53 EST
Clay Shirky writes: "A recent article about the recent MCI announcement in
the New York Times said that 85 cents of every dollar spent on long distance
service was profit."
That may be so. But it is also true that about 30 cents of every dollar spent
on _local_ service is loss. Partly to compensate for the fact that the RBOCs
lose money on local service, the long-distance carriers were ordered, in the
AT&T breakup, to pay them a substantial sum--$20-30 billion a year in
aggregate--in "access charges." The legal/political/economic battle over that
pot of gold is turning out to be one of the greatest donnybrooks since
lobbying was invented.
Tom Stewart
