George Cook wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> This was forwarded to me...
>
> <<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Vote your conscience on this one.
> Subject: New Internet Usage Charge
This is sooooooooo old. Probably qualifies as urban myth by now.
I hadn't heard of any new action at the FCC, so went and searched the
CNN site. Only relevant article I could find was to November 7, 1996.
Took that date to the FCC, and found this, from december 12, 1997:
--------
Background Information
Each long distance telephone call you make includes per-minute fees that
your long distance carrier pays to the originating and terminating local
telephone companies over whose facilities that call also travelled.
Those fees, which are designed to recover the costs to local telephone
companies for use of their facilities, are referred to as "access
charges."
As part of its Access Reform proceeding, CC Docket 96-262, the FCC in
December 1996 sought comment on the treatment of ISPs and other
"enhanced service providers" that also use local telephone companies'
facilities. Since the access charge system was established in 1983,
enhanced service providers have been classified as "end users" rather
than "carriers" for purposes of the access charge rules, and therefore
they do not pay the per-minute access charges that long-distance
companies pay to local telephone companies.
In the Access Reform Order, FCC 97-158, adopted on May 7, 1997, the FCC
concluded that the existing rate structure for ISPs should remain in
place. In other words, the Commission reaffirmed that ISPs are not
required to pay interstate access charges.
When it began the Access Reform proceeding, the Commission also issued a
Notice of Inquiry, CC Docket 96-263, seeking comment more broadly on
usage of the public switched telephone network by Internet and
interstate information service providers. A Notice of Inquiry is a
request for information that does not involve any specific proposed
action. The Commission stated in the Access Reform order that it
intended to use the Notice of Inquiry record to develop a
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposing actions to facilitate the
efficient deployment of data networks.
-----------------
This only means that there is currently an open comment period for the
development of a longterm plan, a period that has been open for two
years. There is no legislation/rulemaking pending that I can find, and,
even if the FCC was changing the rules, Congress (if I remember right)
can't stop an FCC rulemaking exercise, they can only pass legislation to
overturn it after the fact.
The FCC has a page dedicated to the issue as well:
http://www.fcc.gov/isp.html
Someone please let me know if I'm wrong--if there is actually something
happening, I'd like to know . . .
Brett
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