Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: Martin J Shannon Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Modem Tax (Again? Again!) Message-ID: <2637@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 5 Jan 90 18:14:50 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: mjs@cbnews.ATT.COM (martin.j.shannon,59112,lc,4nr10,201 580 5757) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 34 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 9, message 8 of 8 Several folks have made mention of the FCC's recurrent proposed tax on modem use, and the SWBT fiasco with BBS users and operators, and I'm sure that various & sundry regulatory agencies have proposed surcharges and/or taxes on modem use in the past, and will continue to do so until the modeming community makes itself heard. How to make ourselves heard, you ask? (I'm *so* glad you did!) Consider the following for a moment: How much revenue would the local phone companies (*and* long distance carriers) lose if most modem use were to cease for a month? How many BBS users regularly run up a $100/month bill? $200/month? $500/month? I can't remember the last time my BBS hopping cost less than $100/ month; in fact, only 1 month in the last 8 or so was under $200! I can't really believe that I'm particularly pathological in my modeming habits, so I'd figure that a protest of voting with our wallets would carry a great deal of weight. Now, I'm not (necessarily) actually proposing such a stunt, but if the FCC (or any of the state PUC's) were to make the mistake of penalizing BBS users and/or operators, it would seem to me that the only "right and proper" thing for us all to do is "Just say no!" Do any of you TELECOM folks have access to ballpark figures of just how much the "little people" (BBS users & operators) actually pay to the various phone companies? I'd love to see some figures! Marty Shannon; AT&T Bell Labs; Liberty Corner, NJ, USA (Affiliation is given for identification only: I don't speak for them; they don't speak for me.)