[11012] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Telecomm Cartel Part I
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (PACS-L Moderator)
Tue Jan 28 20:27:23 1997
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 19:12:51 -0600 (CST)
From: PACS-L Moderator <libpacs@UH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
>Subject: Re: Telecomm Cartel Part I
>
>On Mon, 27 Jan 1997, Jim Warren <jwarren@well.com> wrote:
>
>....
>
>> Near the end of last year, Congress and the administration enacted the
>> Telecom Deform (uh, "Reform") Act -- lubricated by several million dollars
>> of telecomm cartel "donations" in the past decade -- "to encourage
>> innovation, allow competition and thus reduce costs to communications
>> services consumers."
>>
>> Within less than three months, "suddenly" the telecommunications giants --
>> the RBOCs, Regional Bell Operating Companies, etc. -- have begun a
>> publicity campaign hyping the delusion that Internet use is exploding so
>> rapidly that the poor ol' cartel simply can't install enough high-speed
>> lines to meet the need.
>>
>> Unless, of course, they can charge per-bit fees for data calls on fixed-fee
>> residential voice lines, collect per-bit access charges from every Internet
>> Service Provider, etc. And they're taking their plea of destitution to
>> their own, private special-interest representatives, appointed in
>> Washingtoontown, the Federal Communications Commission.
>
>[snip]
>
> Jim Warren's desertation on the exploits of the "Global Gladiators"
> is exciting stuff on which to blow off a little steam. Meanwhile
> hundreds of billions of dollars of the public treasure and labor of
> American workers are being fed into corporate bank accounts each
> year. Its a story, which as been going on for a very long time,
> repeated over and over again.
>
> We need something more fundamental than simply protesting the latest
> political outrage. The "Demosophia Initiative" is the right response
> to this country's chronic needs. On the theme of greatest relevance to
> this discussion my recommendation is an attack on two critical
> fronts:
>
> 1) to design the desirable system of information and knowledge
> utilization, which can respond to the needs of the
> people disregarded by the "Global Gladiators"; and
> 2) to establish models of group cooperation and integration around
> which to organize the collective will of citizens in
> opposition to the failed system of "representative
> democracy," which serves only the privileged groups.
>
>Vigdor
>
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