Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!olivea!oliveb!bunker!wtm
From: rbarth@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Dick Barth)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: modems and money
Message-ID: <15398@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 5 Nov 90 15:25:10 GMT
Sender: wtm@bunker.UUCP
Reply-To: rbarth@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Dick Barth)
Distribution: misc
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Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP

Index Number: 11496

In Digest # 1603, 34AEJ7D@CMUVM.BITNET (Bill Gorman) writes:

   Does anybody know the status of the proposed taxes Bush wants to slap
   on modems, computers, etc., as the user fees proposed for everyone
   using a modem over a phone line?

   W. K. (Bill) Gorman

Oh Lord, not that again. I'm delighted to tell you, Bill, that there's no
such proposal. There was one, several years ago, and it got shouted down
by a lot of computer users who told the FCC they were having no part of
it. It was an FCC proposal to creage special charges for phone lines 
used for modem calls.  There was no indication Bush had anything to do
with it; some genius at the FCC thought it up.

However, it's dead and has been for some time. A lot of bulletin boards
must still have old files and messages carrying alarmist messages about
it, because every so often the matter surfaces again as if it were still
a real idea instead of an anachronism.