Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mit-eddie!killer!vector!nobody From: judy@moray.UUCP (Judy Scheltema) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Houston vs SW Bell Message-ID: <617@vector.UUCP> Date: 27 Oct 88 15:39:34 GMT Sender: chip@vector.UUCP Lines: 629 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp The article below was written by Loring Chien telling of his and other sysop's experiences with Southwestern Bell saying they were going to charge business rates to bbs's. ------------------------------------------------------------ FONEWAR1.WS - an ongoing chronicle of Southwestern Bell's attempt to reclassify BBS phone lines to a higher rate class Beginning: Oct 5, 1988 Loring Chien modem: 495-3039 3/12/2400 baud Bill Pearre, Sysop of the OUCH RCP/M in Houston called me Thursday evening with the news that someone at Southwestern Bell had called him and announced they were going to reclassify his system's phone liine to business and charge a higher rate. Andrea Prothrow of Southwestern Bell Telephone (SWB) called me on Friday, September 30 to inform me that my number, 495-3039 would be charged at the business rate beginning on the next phone bill. The rate increase will cause a substantial (3 X) increase in the operating cost of Phoenix RCP/M. There is a little confusion on the rate, I think I was told $35.50 on the phone, but her letter, in response to a request for written confirmation, says $33.50. I believe the current residential base rate is $11.25. Quite a few state, local and federal taxes and other surcharges apply driving the rate up even more. She said that it has been determined that I was running a Bulletin Board System (BBS) (which I did not admit to at the time). I asked how they had determined that it was a BBS and she refused to tell me. I asked why it was a business and she said that BBSs performed a service and that since it was a service I was to be considered a business. I asked what recourse I had and she said I could drop the phone service. She told me that SWB's lawyers had looked at the matter and felt they were within their rights to do this. The attached letter and "Exchange Tariff" regulation were delivered to me after I requested written confirmation and the phone company's written description of what constitutes a business. [Text of letter from SWBT to Loring Chien] Southwestern Bell Telephone P.O. Box 1530 Houston, Texas 77251-1530 October 3, 1988 Loring Chien Edited for privacy Houston, Texas 77083 Re: (713) 495-3039 Dear Loring Chien, This will confirm our telephone conversation informing you of the reclassification of your account from residence to business. The appropriate classification for bulletin board service providers is business and the appropriate business rates apply. We will not back bill you for the past underbilling due to the misclassification of your account. However, effective with your next bill dated October 15, 1988, your account will be revised to reflect the appropraite business classification, and your monthly rate will be $33.50 per month. We apologize for this error and any inconvenience this may have caused. Should you have any questions regarding your account, please call your local service representative on (713) 561-2766. Sincerely, Andrea Prothow Service Representative Marketing Operations [Entire Text of SWBT's General Exchange Tariff mailed to me] President - Texas Division GENERAL EXCHANGE TARIFF Southwestern Bell Telephone Company Section : 23 Dallas, Texas Sheet : 2 Issued: November 20, 1984 Revision : Original Effective: March 15, 1985 Replacing : RULES AND REGULATIONS APPLYING TO ALL CUSTOMERS' CONTRACTS 3. APPLICATION OF BUSINESS AND RESIDENCE RATES 3.1 Business rates apply at the following Locations: In offices, stores, factories and all other places of strictly business nature. In boarding houses (except as noted below), offices of hotels, halls and offices of apartment buildings, quarters occupied by clubs, or lodges, public, private or parochial schools, or colleges, hospitals, libraries, churches and other similar institutions, except in churches and lodges as specified below. At residence locations when the customer has no regular business telephone and the use of the service either by himself, members of his household or his guests, or parties calling him can be considered as more of a business than of a residence nature, which fact might be indicated by advertising, either by business cards, newspapers, handbills, circulars, motion picture screens, or other advertising matter, such as on vehicles, etc., or when such business use is not such as commonly arises and passes over residence telephones during the intervals when, in compliance with the law or established custom, business places are ordinarily closed. At residence locations, where the service is located in a shop, office, or other place of business. In college fraternity houses where the members lodge within the house. At any location where the listing of service at that location indicates a business, trade, or profession, except as specified below. 3.2 Residence Rates Apply at the Following Locations: In private residences where business listings are not provided. In private apartments of hotels, rooming houses or boarding houses where service is confined to the customer's use, and elsewhere in rooming and boarding houses which are not advertised as a place of business or which have less than five rooms for roomers or which furnish meals to less than ten boarders, provided business listings are not furnished. In the place of residence of a clergyman, physician, dentist, veterinary surgeon, other medical practitioner, Christian Science practitioner, nurse, midwife, or in their office, provided the office is located in their residence and is not part of an office building. In any such casese the listing may indicate the customer's profession, but only in connection with an individual name. If listings of firms or partnerships, etc., or additional listings of persons not residing in the same household are desired, business rates apply. In a private stable or garage when strictly a part of a domestic establishment. In churches where the the service is not accessible for public patronage, as in pastors' studies. In lodges where there is only occasional use of the service. [Text of letter sent by Bill Pearre, SYSOP of OUCH RCP/M] W. H. Pearre 7011 Sharpview Houston, TX, 77074 Sept. 30, 1988 Certified Mail - Return receipt Southwestern Bell Telephone Company Business Office 14575 Presidio Square, Room 200 Houston, Texas 77083 Dear Sirs: I received a telephone notification today from "Andrea" at your company's telephone 561-2766 that my personal telephone line 777- 2114 was being changed from peronal usage to business usage due to a "new" interpretation of your tariff by your lawyers. This personal telephone line has been used as a Computer Bulletin Board since March 1987 with no indication from you for all that time that this usage was to be considered as business usage. This Bulletin board is operated as a Hobby and for Public Service without any charge to persons using it. This Bulletin Board is not advertised by me for any purpose. Will you please furnish me in writing your authority to change the status of this line from personal to business. My understanding is that you must prove a change on the operation of a telephone line and notify me in writing before you can change its status. I will appreciate an early reply. Sincerely, W. H. Pearre cc: Federal Communications Commission 1919 M Street NW Washington, D.C. 20554 Public Utilities Commission of Texas Mr. Coyle C. Kelley, Exec. Director 7800 Shoal Creek Blvd, Suite 450N Austin, Texas 78757 Senator Buster Brown P. O. Box 12068 Austin, Texas 78711 Analysis of possible actions by Loring Chien Oct 6, 1988 My opinions: I think there are three possible tacks to take here: A. One is that we do not fit Southwestern Bell's (SWB) definition of a business. Arguably we provide a service. "Andrea" Prothrow told me that were going after bulletin boards because they provide a service and thus are a business. Their tariff does not stress the service aspect. It does stress that the chief indication of a business is that the business be advertised. We have not advertised at all, and do not have a listing in their yellow pages or business section, nor do we require one. Our number has been passed by word of mouth. It has appeared on a number of BBS lists around town, probably how the phone company identified it as a BBS. The tariff is specific that a user's line is considered business service if "the use of the service by himself... or parties calling him can be considered as more of a business than a residence nature". I am running the system as a hobby on second-hand and donated equipment: a 1980-vintage CP/M-based 8-bit microcomputer three generations behind current IBM-PCs. We do not charge; therfore it is hard to conceive that we operate a business. I see no dictionary definition of business that we conceivably fit. I suspect hat SWB is most vulnerable here. We can and should enlist the PUC. B. Another tack is that we can persuade them it is not practical to go after BBSs. From the size of the current BBSLIST file updated monthly by local modem enthusiasts, I figure that there are two hundred and twenty-five BBSs in Houston, (maybe 400 in all of Texas) of which 150 are privately run (the rest are run by real businesses: schools, stores, libraries and museums, or their owners charge for access priveleges). SWB stands to gain about $45,000 per year by this campaign in Houston. However I predict that 2/3 of the private operators will fold their systems. Simply put the reclassification raises the cost of their hobby from around $150 per year to nearly $500 and I think most would not spend it. Thus the company would only net about $10,000 in additional revenue from this campaign, which may very well be lost to ill will. Furthermore, I would estimate that each bulletin board has 100 to 500 users, representing a large number of users (you don't have to point out the fact that many are redundant users of more than one system). If two thirds of the private systems were to vanish over the next six months, local modem use would go down and there are many two-phone households specifically because of personal modem hobbies. SWB would find that many two-phone housholds would drop the 2nd line. This would rapidly erase the $10,000 revenue gain. It would only take around 80 2nd phone cancellations to do this. This would be hard to prove or disprove as I'm sure that SWB has no statistics on why there are second lines installed. It would be my guess that there are 4000 very active modem users and 30,000 sporadic users in Houston. Some percentage of the 4000 is sure to have a second line installed for their hobby. If I were to use this I'd go much more carefully over the figures and especially the board count, but I'm pretty confident of the range. This financial impact approach might be worth pursuit - I'm not sure how important this is to SWB. The girl calling everyone, "Andrea" didn't give her last name outwhen she called and sounded rather like a new recruit. She has no secretary (the letter, while not bad, was not a fine example of a business letter -- salutation with no title, a comma, no colon, and lack of a secretarial signature) and no permanent phone! (rather strange for SWB, no?). Her title is Service Representative (sounds like an entry level job). Maybe they had someone extra and are finding make-work for her? C. Probably a least likely course of action, but the ACLU might like this one. The BBS is a unique institution for freedom of speech. SWB may not like them because of a small but highly publicized group of phone vandals (incorrectly referred to as hackers) have used modems for possibly illegal and definately immoral purposes. However, for the rest of us it may be considered a medium of free speech, disemination of information and technology transfer; thus low phone rates are protected by the fifth ammendment or something along that line. I have some statistics on the use of Phoenix RCP/M available, as to number of hours and callers, that can be printed out with medium effort. Finally, there are likely well over 200 other Sysops being called by Andrea, many will be comtemplating the same actions-- should we and can we co-ordinate actions with them? Loring Chien modem (preferred) 495-3039 [Text of letter sent by Loring Chien] Edited for privacy Houston, Texas 77083 October 9, 1988 Southwestern Bell Telephone Company P.O. Box 1530 Houston, Texas 77251-1530 re: Business Classification of Residential Phone line 495-3039 Dear Sirs: I wish to protest the recent unilateral reclassification by Sothwestern Bell Telephone Company of the telephone line 495-3039 from residential service to business service. I am aware that you have deemed this line a computer "BBS". I believe you are grossly misapplying your tariff in this case where I use the line for hobby purposes. According to fellow hobbyists, you have done the same thing all over Houston. The acronym BBS is widely used for "Bulletin Board System", not "bulletin board service" as stated in your letter. We will probably not easily find a legal description of what exactly constitutes a computer BBS. Let me describe how I use what you call a BBS. My hobby is computers, and on the phone line in question, I have connected a computer through a modem at my home. This system is run as part of my hobby. The system allows me to operate my computer from remote locations with a modem. It has also been available to interested callers for discussion of both computer- related and non-computer related topics of interest and for transfering data of interest to me and my friends who are also hobbyists. Like my voice telephone, 123-4567, at the same address, the number has been given to my friends and associates. In some cases they have also given it to their friends. Both numbers have been used in the pursuit of my hobby. On my voice telephone, I have a conventional phone answering machine. In the case of the number in question, 495-3039, I have never, and do not in the future, intend to levy a charge, monetary or other, for persons calling and interacting with the system. I do not use the system for advertising or promoting any commercial products for financial gain to me or any other party. Some products are discussed, as topics or for informational purposes, in the course of conversations held between me and callers. I have never engaged in any advertising, such as business cards, circulars, television or radio ads, newspaper ads, handbills or other printed or broadcast materials, of this system for any reason at all. I am aware that the number has been placed on locally- and nationally-distributed lists of computer-callable systems by other persons who compile such lists. This is not uncommon; I am on many computerized phone lists, judging by the number of unsolicited phone calls I receive on my voice line. The equipment on the line in question is a "home-brew" computer, essentially a collection of parts, in some cases designed by me, and in other cases repaired or modified by me and assembled into a functioning computer. The chassis is a S-100 bus unit made by Integrand, the Z-80 CPU and disk controller made by California Computer Systems, the disk drives are 8" floppy media units made by Remex and Siemens. I designed and assembled the serial port interface and clock last year. The only other part of the system made after 1981 is the modem. This is truly a hobbyist system. The software is also hobbyist in nature. The operating system is a highly modified CP/M version 2.2, no longer sold. All the other software in use is considered public domain and customized or written by me. If you were to ask any reasonably-informed personal computer expert, he would inform you that this system would not today be sold as a commercial system. Your representative, Ms. Andrea Prothrow, who contacted me via my voice line, stated that the reason that BBSes are now being charged business rates is that they provide a service, and that any service must therefore be a business. However, your Exchange Tariff, Section 23, sheet 2, dated November 20, 1984, effective March 15, 1985, specifically states that, for phones at residences, business rates are to be in effect when the nature of use is business rather than residential. The tariff suggests that business use is indicated by advertising. I have also checked my dictionary and it says that "business" is commerce or trade, with a profit motive. I assure you that my hobby system meets none of these criteria. I do not advertise for people to call this number, I do not operate in expectation of profit, and I am not engaged in any commerce or otherwise commercial activities. While there may be others who operate bulletin board systems that advertise for or support commercial ventures, I do not. It is very heavy-handed of your company to, in a blanket fashion, assume that my line and other similar lines carry commercial traffic. I challenge Southwestern Bell to provide a written explanation of its reasons for assigning business status to this line. The General Exchange Tariff goes on to state that residence rates apply "in private residences where business listings are not provided." I believe there is no question that that classification should apply here. I expect that Southwestern Bell Telephone will review its decision and reassign residential status to the phone line 495- 3039 retroactive to October 1, 1988. I will remind you that you are a public utility and that the unilateral actions you have taken are not those taken by a company sensitive to public appearances. Personal computer operations like that which I have are a bold expression of the freedom we have in this country. Systems such as I have would never be tolerated in a closed society like the Soviet Union, where the government and government-controlled utilities would take measures to discourage it. It is important to realize, in this and future related situations, that transfer of data is not solely a function of government and business. There are many other users such as I for whom digital data communication is very much a matter of freedom of speech, freedom of press, and pursuit of happiness. I certainly hope that Southwestern Bell Telephone will not use its position as a publically-sanctioned monopoly to penalize in any way those who chose to use their residential phones for digital data. The difference between business rates and residential rates would add a substantial financial penalty to me as an individual for the pursuit of my hobby. Officials of the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, and the parties to whom copies of this letter are being sent, have my permission to call this number (1-713-495-3039 at 300/1200, or 2400 baud, 8 bits, no parity) and see firsthand that it is not a business. Please do not call my voice number. I prefer that all further communications from Southwestern Bell Telephone regarding this account be in writing. Yours truly, Loring Chien xc: Mr. Coyle Kelley, Executive Director Public Utility Commission of Texas 7800 Shoal Creek Road, Suite 450N Austin, Texas 78757 Mrs. Betty Suthard Public Utility Commission of Texas 7800 Shoal Creek Road, Suite 400N Austin, Texas 78757 Federal Communications Commission 1919 M Street NW Washington, D.C. 20554 Mr. Donald R. Morris The Houston Post P. O. Box 4747 Houston, Texas 77210-4747 [Text of a letter written to Donald Morris, columnist for the Houston Post] Edited for privacy Houston, Texas 77083 October 9, 1988 Mr. Donald R. Morris The Houston Post P. O. Box 4747 Houston, Texas 77210-4747 Dear Don: I have corresponded with you on Bulletin boards some time ago. At the time we were engaged in fighting 550-pt Adventures on CP/M systems. I was co-sysop of RIBBS at that time. I know that you are a computer afficiando of sorts, and also a frequenter of BBSes. There is a matter which has come up recently which I think significantly affects the future of BBSes in Houston. My friend and fellow Sysop Bill Pearre has suggested that you might be willing to use this as a subject for a column in the near future. The primary matter at hand is the unilateral action by the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company (SWBT) to raise the rates of those who operate BBS systems from their homes as a hobby. Late last week sysops started receiving calls from Andrea who informed them that their rates would be changed from the residential rate to the business rate. Currently the monthly expense of running my system, Phoenix RCP/M, is about $16. This is the base residential rate of $11.25 plus local, state and federal taxes and access charges. It would actually be possible to lower the base rate to $8.25 or so if I was to switch to measured service on both my phone lines. At the business rate of $35.50 per month, I anticipate that my monthly expense, including taxes and access charges, would be nearly $46. The increase in cost of my hobby would be $360 per year, from $190 to $550, or very nearly trebling my phone cost! There are several issues here. One is the legality of the SWBT action. I have enclosed some materials which are the letter from SWBT to me, the SWBT general tariff which details what conditions are required for business classification, and my response. I think that I have reasonable grounds for reversal of the reclassification. If necessary I and other sysops will enlist the PUC and lawyers to fight this. The other issue is the general harrassment by the phone company of modem users in general. The impression I and others have is that SWBT an the other Baby Bells regard digital data transfer as the sole province of government and business. There have been rumors to the effect that SWBT may soon be sweeping the lines and any phones bearing modem tones will be subject to commercial user rates. As you know there is a group who periodically compile and distribute, by modem, a list of BBSes in Houston. The list I have dated Aug. 5, 1988 has the numbers of 225 such systems, including Bill Pearre's and mine. There are a few of these that are run by computer stores and such, but the majority are privately-operated systems like mine. Their future is placed in jeopardy by the reclassification since many sysops cannot afford $550/year operating costs. I predict two-thirds of the private systems, or somewhere around 130 BBSes would be gone in six months time. My personal thought is that freedom of digital data transmission should have been in the Bill of Rights. Since the Constitution's framers made this oversight, we will have to rely upon freedom of speech, freedom of the press and pursuit of happiness. I think the number of BBSes in operation is a tribute to the freedom we have in this country. Can you imagine BBSes operating in the Soviet Union? Now SWBT is mounting a concentrated campaign against these systems. Historically the phone companies have always had run-ins with modems. At first, they tried to maintain a virtual monopoly on the equipment. The legal decision that allowed you to own a non- phone company-supplied phone was the Carterfone decision, and Carterfone made modems, not telephones. When I got my first modem in 1981, the phone companies still wanted to know if you were attaching a modem to their line. Later on, in California, Pacific Bell was engaged in trying to destroy BBSes and actually confiscated the BBS equipment of a system there. Allegedly the message base of that system contained information used by phone phreaks to mess with the phone company's equipment. Although the content of the messages was not known by the sysop, the phone company held him responsible. In fact, they seized not only the BBS system but all the computer equipment in his house, and he was a professional contract programmer. The outcome, I believe was in the sysop's favor, but the overwhelming tone was that Pac Bell was trying to intimidate the BBS community. Over the last two years there was a running campaign on the BBSes to write to the FCC regarding some phone-company sponsored regulation-change proposals to heavily raise rates to users of long distance digital data communications. Happily the FCC saw otherwise and users of Compuserve etc. were protected from what could have been a doubling of access rates to those systems. As stated earlier, I am enclosing some materials I have written or received. These are the letter from SWBT, the tariff in effect, and letters to SWBT. There is also an analysis of possible actions we can take. Other sysops are taking action. There are some notes on the HAL-PC board as well as Ye Olde Bailey, a legal BBS (at 520-1569) here in town. If you could, Don, please consider a column devoted to some of the issues here. I and the BBS/modem community here in Houston would be highly appreciative. Thanks. Yours truly, Loring Chien Sysop, Phoenix RCP/M, 495-3039, 300/1200/2400 baud -- Judy Scheltema | uunet!nuchat!moray!judy Houston, Texas | bellcore!texbell!moray!judy