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From: mjb@tahoe.unr.edu (Mike Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: FCC doing it again...
Message-ID: <3175@tahoe.unr.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 89 20:39:20 GMT
Reply-To: mjb@tahoe.unr.edu (Mike Brown)
Organization: University of Nevada - Reno
Lines: 21

In article <246@cfa.HARVARD.EDU> wyatt@cfa.HARVARD.EDU (Bill Wyatt) writes:
>...
>I don't want extra charges either, but in addition to the above 
>consideration, modem calls are not the same simply because they
>usually last much longer than a voice call. Somewhere I read an
>estimate that if only 20% of household had modems in regular use,
>the phone system would be hoplessly bogged down.
>...

I tend think that if calls of a longer duration cost more to maintain
than a shorter call, anyone making a longer call should be
billed accordingly.  If it doesn't matter what you are doing while
connected then you shouldn't be billed based on what you are doing.

I have read somewhere that just taking the phone off the hook
instead of unplugging it (to block all calls) causes a lot of
work for the phone company (detecting an idle line, signaling it, 
cutting it off, then checking it to see when it goes active again).  

The length of calls argument falls to pieces in any case.
Life with capitalism...