>The FCC's ruling today on calls to local ISPs has resulted in a
>record amount of traffic to IDG.net. To help you understand the
>issues behind this complicated story, the editors at IDG.net
>created this special newsletter.
>
>FCC rules ISP calls are long-distance in nature
>(Source: Network World Fusion) In a long-anticipated vote, the
>U.S. Federal Communications Commission decided that dial-up
>Internet calls are interstate in nature and not local.
there's been some confusion about this ruling online. yes, the FCC upheld
a decision that traffic oevr GTE high-speed lines was partially interstate
in nature, because some of the traffic over those lines originated in one
state and was delivered to another. OTOH, the FCC also restated a
previous ruling that local (7-digit) calls to an ISP *cannot* be billed as
long-distance calls.
the ruling does open a door for telcos which might allow them to charge
some sort of metered rate for online traffic, but it won't be your average
long-distance charge. for one thing, the telcos know it would drive
people away from their service and onto other options, like cable modems.
there are indeed short-sighted business people out there, but this is an
obvious enough losing scenario that even the average PHB can see the flaws.
there's also some debate on whether the telcos will see enough benefit from
metered rates to make them worthwhile at all. network technology is still
evolving rapidly, and there's a great deal of competition among the
alternative technologies. if a company invests a few hundred million in
the latest fiber system, they *want* enough people using it to secure the
stability of that technology for the future. the last thing they want to
do is drive potential customers to some other technology, which will then
lock the market and make their own stuff obsolete.
nobody's sure, yet, whether the added income from metered rates can
overcome the cost of being on the losing side in the technology wars.
telcos will probably push for some kind of metered rate is possible, but
the end user will see those rates subject to a *lot* of competition. the
difference of a half-cent per minute translates to $150K per year for a
dedicated connection. numbers like that make it sensible for ISPs to shop
around.
mike stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 'net geek..
been there, done that, have network, will travel.
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