FCC doing it again...

[goldstein at delni.enet.dec.com]

I'm not usually a reader of this group (I was tipped off to look here by 
a certifiable unix wizard) but this discussion belongs in, and overlaps,
comp.dcom.telecom, which is moderated...  Anyway, I'd like to SQUASH
THE RUMORS that are cropping up here in c.u.w!

Somebody started this last week with a posting from some BBS that
insinuated that the FCC was re-enacting their previously-dismissed
proposal to charge additional fees to "enhanced service providers" 
(ESPs, in FCC parlance).  The rumor is FALSE!

A couple of years ago, a LOT of us spent a lot of time and money 
fighting a proposal that would effectively classified "ESPs" as 
interstate carriers, and subjected them to the same charges that long 
distance carriers (MCI, AT&T, et al) pay to the local Bells.  Right now, 
there are two very different types of attachments to local US telcos.  
You can be an end-user, and pay a state-tariffed rate.  Or you can be a 
carrier, and pay a federally-tariffed rate, which includes several cents 
per minute (about $5/hr, actually) for usage.  This usage fee provides 
the bells with the subsidies that hold down residential local monthly 
rates in most areas (especially rural ones) to something below cost.
Reclassifying ESPs as carriers would thus add about $5/hr to their 
costs, which they'd pass along to users.

ESPs are hard to define.  The FCC appeared to include any time-sharing 
service (i.e., CompuServe), packet carrier (Tymnet) or other service 
that allowed messages to be passed across state lines.  Most use modems 
for access, and much modem access could be classified "enhanced".  The
actual definition, though, would have been fuzzy and no doubt have led 
to many court cases.  Most Bells supported the FCC on this, but few 
others did.

The FCC, facing extreme opposition, relented.  Then the FCC members' 
terms mostly expired, and new commissioners were appointed.  During the 
confirmation hearings, new FCC chair Alf Sykes pledged, on the record 
before Congress, that the FCC would NOT revive that proposal.  
Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass.), whose subcommittee has FCC oversight, 
made very clear that Congress was ready to pass a law in a minute's time 
that would overturn such a plan; they didn't ban it in the FCC's 
appropriation this year out of courtesy to Sykes and his pledge.

I do have the official statements from Markey here, and the sense of the 
Congress is clear.  ESPs, which are mostly modem users (but also some
audio services like voice mail), will be treated as end users and not as 
interstate carriers.  If the FCC tries to change this, they will get a 
fight and it will cost them plenty (in their appropriations), and it 
will probably be overturned by Congress.  Yes, the Bells still want the 
charge, but they don't seem at all likely to get it.

Now there is a very different state regulatory issue in some states 
where some telcos are trying to discriminate against modem users, but 
that's unrelated to the FCC and beyond the scope of this post.  (In 
particular, the regulatory commissions who regulated Southwestern Bell 
filed support with the FCC for the Bell position for the high ESP 
charges.  Makes you wonder.  But remember that these states are 
dominated, politically, by knownothings who hold all technology suspect, 
not to mention educated people.)  And if you're interested in the "costs" 
of modem usage, to the telco, check out comp.dcom.telecom (the Telecom
Digest).  So PLEASE, stop rumormongering AND CHECK THE FACTS!  Thank
you.
      fred