Barry, not exactly a speech, but a news item maybe related to what Ms. Leeza Rodriguez posted.
Beni
Technology News
Wed, 8 Apr 1998, 8:08pm EDT
BN 4/8 Taxes May Stifle Internet Telecom Services, Analysts Say
Taxes May Stifle Internet Telecom Services, Analysts Say
San Diego, April 8 (Bloomberg) -- The prospects of
companies planning to offer low-cost telecommunication services
over the Internet will be threatened if the U.S. government
begins taxing those services, analysts and telecom industry
officials said.
Unlike long-distance carriers like AT&T Corp. and Sprint
Communications Corp., Internet service providers don't pay access
fees to the Baby Bells and other local phone companies, where all
calls made on the public phone network begin and end.
As the amount of Internet data traffic carried on their
networks explodes, though, both the Baby Bells and the long-
distance companies have called for ISPs to begin paying the fees.
The federal government, which created the ISP exemption in
the early 1980s to stimulate Internet growth, is now considering
a change in policy. Critics say that is a bad idea.
''It would be devastating to this nascent industry,'' said
John Coons, an analyst with Gartner Group Inc.'s Dataquest unit.
Although Internet traffic has been rising by more than 100
percent annually in recent years and now surpasses the amount of
voice traffic for many carriers, most ISPs still don't turn a
profit, Coons said at the Gartner Group Predicts conference in
San Diego, which runs this week.
The ISPs have remained in the red because of expensive
equipment costs required to handle calls and intense competition,
which has kept Internet access fees as low as $19 per month for
most basic services.
That may be about to change as new gear from computer
networking companies such as Cisco Systems Inc. and telecom
equipment makers like Northern Telecom Ltd. allow voice, video
and data services to be sent over a single network.
The key to a solution will be finding a way for the telecom
providers to get revenue from data traffic the way they do for
voice services, said Northern Telecom's Chief Executive John
Roth.
''People who are provisioning Internet traffic aren't making
any money off it,'' Roth said.
--John Shinal in San Diego, through the San Francisco newsroom (415) 912-2995/pkc
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