Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Fcc Regs/Data Comm.
Message-ID: <70194@looking.on.ca>
Date: 2 Jan 90 03:15:35 GMT
References: <31A.news.misc@pro-generic>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 54
Class: discussion

I would advise against sending that letter.  It doesn't address the real
issue.  As I understand it, it works like this:

a) A modem call is *not* the same as a voice call.  (This has more to
do with the local BBS == business line question than the $5/hour surcharge
question.)

	o) Modem calls last far longer than voice calls in the local
	calling area, for one thing.  One of the reasons businesses pay
	a premium for phone lines is that they use their lines a great
	deal more than home users.

	o) Modem calls involve continuous transmission of singal in both
	  directions at all times.  Voice calls are almost always half
	  duplex (except with rude people!) and also full of the gaps between
	  words and other pauses.  (Being put on hold, for example.)

	  While most modem use is also half-duplex, the phone company can't
	  know that, sort of decoding your data, sending it on their own
	  channels, and re-modulating it out on the other end.  So it
	  uses at least 3 times the bandwidth of a voice call.

	  (If they *did* decode it before putting it on the trunks, then
	  a 2400 bps modem call would in fact take only 6% of the bandwidth
	  of a voice call.   This is exactly why packet net connections
	  cost less than voice calls!  Clever, eh?)

2) As far as I know, they want to put this tax on the packet networks.
	Right now, the voice long distance companies connect to the local
	bells in the USA.  They pay the local Bells part of what they
	bill for LD to pay for the work the local Bell does in moving
	your signal from your home to the LD company's nexus.

	The packet companies also connect into the local bells, and move
	data out from their local nexus to their worldwide net.  CIS,
	GEnie, Tymnet etc. all right packet nets in this fashion.  They
	only pay the local Bells regular charges for a local voice
	line, when in fact they are getting the same service as AT&T or
	any other LD company.

That isn't fair.  There are two ways to make it fair:

	Charge the packet companies some charge to receive local calls
	and send them out of the LATA, just as LD companies are charged, or

	Remove the access charge for all, and raise the local rates.

The latter solution is the most fair.  Each company is paid for exactly
what it does, by the people who use its service.  But it would be
difficult from a political standpoint to do this.

	
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473