Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!texbell!chinacat!telecom-gateway From: goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Why Aren't College Telcos Regulated? Message-ID: Date: 30 Nov 89 16:40:38 GMT Sender: news@chinacat.Lonestar.ORG Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Littleton MA USA Lines: 39 Approved: telecom-request@chinacat.lonestar.org X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 540, message 2 of 7 In article , eravin@dasys1.UUCP (Ed Ravin) writes... >From recent postings in comp.dcom.telecom, it appears that many >colleges and universities have become the telephone company for their >students living in on-campus housing.... >Why aren't these local telephone service providers (for, in essence, >that's what they are) regulated by their respective state public >service commissions? If Columbia is adding $5 to the cost of a >collect call, they should have to file a tariff with the state first. Because they aren't telcos. A telco, in the legal sense, is "certificated" by the state to provide exchange service on a monopoly basis to a defined area. In Columbia's case, f'rinstance, New York Telephone is certificated. A student wanting direct outside telephones would call NYT, not, say, ConTel (who is certificated for different parts of NY State). Columbia is a reseller. That's a separate legal class. Under FCC regs, resellers may exist without regulation (technically, I think, the FCC regulates them in forebearance). They can resell INTERSTATE calls with impunity. That's what makes the AOS sleazebuckets possible. In theory, they don't have a monopoly like telcos. (You can drive down the road to the next pay phone. In some cases, you can legally demand access to the LD carrier of your choice and pay that carrier's rates.) Now if your landlord tries to impose a monopoly by limiting the telco's right to serve you directly, that would be a local contract/housing matter, not within their bailiwick. (Reality and law diverge a bit here.) States have the right to regulate INTRASTATE calls, including resale. So if NY State chose to, they could regulate Columbia's in-state rates. But if the call came from New Jersey or Fiji or anyplace outside NY State, the NY PUC would have no jurisdiction. This has worked with some AOSs, btw; if you get zinged on an in-state call, the state PUC or Attorney General can scare them off. fred