Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!bu.edu!telecom-request From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers Message-ID: Date: 20 Feb 91 19:58:26 GMT Sender: news@bu.edu.bu.edu Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle Lines: 23 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 144, Message 7 of 10 How sad that people who rely on the telephone to do their business and make their living choose not to share this resource with the poor who need phones just to stay in touch. When we were preparing legislation to undergird continued universal telephone service in California (which has since passed legal muster), we examined telephone cost tradeoffs and found unequivocal evidence of very large savings on the part of business customers (particularly those with interLATA dealings) at the expense of local service, which has had dumped upon it loads of "unfair taxes" in the form of FCC and state-imposed "access charges." In fact, the annual income redistribution, from small, local customer to large, usually interLATA and interstate customer, is about $6 BILLION. I know this doesn't matter to hard-nosed types who want to hoard their savings, to further control the lives of others in ways that benefit themselves, but the surcharges discussed in Illinois, to keep poor people on the line, don't even approach the disproportionate income transfers already in place. From poor to rich is how divestiture is working out, and you might almost think it planned. Bob Jacobson