Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: martinb@bottomdog.east.sun.com (Martin Baines - Sun UK - Technical Account Executive Cambridge) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Telecom in the News, Part 1 Message-ID: <14212@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 31 Oct 90 12:47:15 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: Martin.Baines@uk.sun.com Organization: Sun Microsystems Ltd Lines: 66 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 779, Message 12 of 13 |> >TELEPHONE SERVICES: A GROWING FORM OF `FOREIGN AID' |> >in minutes -- meaning American phone companies have to pay fees for |> >the surplus calls. The F.C.C. is concerned that foreign companies are |> >demanding much more money than is justified, given the steeply falling |> >costs of providing service, and proposes to limit unilaterally the |> >payments American carriers make. |> Would someone care to tell us how they might enforce this? Americans |> are much more dependent on international phone calls for their |> international business; Europeans and I suspect residents of other |> countries are much more likely to use correspondence and/or TELEX than |> intercontinental phone calls. Come again? Exports from the US account for about 10% GDP, for the UK and Germany this figure is nearer 50%, so why should we us the phone less? |> So if the FCC limits how much AT&T can pay the German TELEKOM or the |> Austrian PTT, etc., and as a result these foreign phone companies |> simply suspend telephone service to the US, it would primarily affect |> U.S. businesses. It's worse than you think, all of the fixed cables across the atlantic terminate either in the UK (most of them) or France, so it only takes 3 companies to pull the plug (BT, France Telecom, Mercury) and the US is limited to satellite only comms to the rest of Europe. |> I am not justifying the high rates charged in many places for phone |> service, I have to bear them myself, but the idea that the FCC can |> dictate to foreign phone companies how much they can charge for access |> to their networks is laughable. The mere thought is enough to bring |> forth the national pride of the bureaucrats running these phone |> companies, to resist any American attempt at interfering in their rate |> structures. Why should a European phone company be concerned with the |> effects on the American trade deficit of competition among U.S. |> carriers? Every call originating in the US instead of Europe is a loss |> of revenue to them, so why should they not try to recover that revenue |> by charging the U.S. carrier who lured away their customer by his |> lower rates? This sort of action cause MAJOR politcal storms in the world outside the US: it's similar to when 3rd world countries unilaterally stoped paying their debts - the US banks sisn't like it one bit! |> Mind you, it is a different matter if AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc., told |> the foreign phone companies that they consider the rates too high, |> they are their business partners; but a U.S. government agency like |> the FCC is out of order when it tries to dictate foreign companies' |> prices. Quite agree, business is business, politics is politics lets TRY and avoid mixing the two! Martin Baines Technical Account Wallah Sun Microsystems Ltd Cambridge UK UK: 0223 420421 JANET: Martin.Baines@uk.co.sun International: +44 223 420421 Other UK: Martin.Baines@sun.co.uk Internet: Martin.Baines@UK.sun.comNNNN