@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 Sender: •••@••.••• (Marty Tennant) Subject: Re: cr> re: flat-rate pricing / "modem tax" Doing away with flat rate service in areas that have had it for years will be difficult. This is a grassroots issue that has been addressed in the past and opposed by many groups and consumers. Regarding the need for more revenues for the Telcos to compensate them for increased holding times for online services - Baloney!! They are already being compensated in the form of additional lines going into residences to keep the kids and mom and dad from tying up the home phone while they log on. This has represented a large increase in revenues for the telcos over the last few years, at very little additional cost to them. In other words - a windfall. Any pleadings before regulatory bodies would have these facts introduced as evidence, blunting any tears from the dial tone providers. If the telcos can in fact show that other lines of business have been subsidizing residential rates in the interest of universal service, there is a good reason to expect increases in these rates, otherwise known as rate rebalancing. Look for business rates to come down, and residential rates to go up. In South Carolina, BellSouth has actually received PSC approval to do this, as long as the overall revenues don't increase for the services as a group. Marty Tennant @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 Sender: Arun Mehta <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: cr> re: flat-rate pricing / "modem tax" > IF it is > bandwidth they care about, why do they care whether I am calling my > ISP, a long-lost friend, or a pizza shop? We raised this once with our unfriendly monopoly, the Department of Telecommunications (we do have such a tax in India), and we were told that calling your isp does consume more bandwidth. When you talk, there are silences, plus you use a rather narrow band of frequencies, all of which make the signal highly compressible. When transmitting it from one telephone exchange to another, less bandwidth is used than in the case of a signal from your modem. I certainly don't support their line of argumentation, merely am stating what their argument is. Why it does not wash is that once they started to compress in this way, and saved tons of money, did they pass on the benefits to us consumers? Not in my country, they didn't. Now that we have found a better way to use the bandwidth we have all along being paying for, they start to complain. Arun Mehta, B-69 Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi-24, India. Phone 6841172,6849103 http://mahavir.doe.ernet.in/~pinaward/arun.htm •••@••.••• •••@••.••• •••@••.••• "There is enough in the world for man's need, but not for his greed"--Gandhi @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - Wexford, Ireland Cyber-Rights: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/library/ CyberJournal: (WWW or FTP) --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
