Internet Access and the FCC (fwd)

[Jennifer Heise]

>Dear Web4Libs,
>
>I am forwarding the following message from another list (the person
>posting it is a close personal friend).  I must confess I was ALMOST
>taken in, too (not quite, though ;-{)>).

Actually, you were taken in, when you believed this was just an urban legend.

>> *************************************************************************
>>    (From Chapter 7, Pranks, spams and time wasters)
>>
>>     THERE IS NO MODEM TAX
>>

The source of the modem tax legend, unfortunately, was another ill-considered
legislative concept that died-- taxing PEOPLE for the their modems.

This one hasn't died yet, I'm sorry to say. The idea is that ISP's will have
to pay a premium charge to their local telco -- up to $1 per hour per user--
in order to 'compensate' the telco for the need for longer connections through
the telco hubs.  Considering the putrescent service Bell Atlantic and Nynex
and other companies give at the local and personal long-distance level,
especially on high-speed modem calls, this is pretty lousy.

There is an FCC web site on this: http://www.fcc.gov/isp.html, and an email
address to file informal comments (access at fcc.gov).
There's a particularly awful article in the New York Times on Feb. 9.

I suspect that some clever jerk in the telecom industry lobby has figured out
that if they keep reviving the 'charge for long distance' in different guises,
we'll eventually consider all such schemes part of the urban legend, and let
one pass.

Don't be so quick to cry hoax  before you have all the facts.

Jennifer Heise,                             Net: jahb at lehigh.edu      |\
Senior Specialist, Web Management, LUIR     Phone:(610)758-3072       |/
Fairchild-Martindale #8A,  Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015     |\
My opinions are my own. No one else would HAVE them anyway.           |/

"If you've lived a bad life, they send you to Hell.  But if you've been truly
_wicked_, they give you a tour of Heaven first..." - Spider Robinson,
_Callahan's Lady_