Hi, wireless...
I just reread my opening sentence in my preceding post to you, and I could have phrased it much better that I did, sorry 'bout that.
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I just finished reading Ken's post re the meeting of the big wigs last week, and I clipped the following as a prop to demonstrate my initial causes for being somewhat startled, concerning the dual path to victory by ICG (reciprocal charges AND exemption to access charges).
>>>Messrs. Bryan [ICG] and Evslin [ITXC] and panel participant Lee McKnight, a professor at Tufts University's school of law and diplomacy, agreed that IP telephony could strain the access charge system and, with it, universal service support mechanisms. BellSouth Corp.'s move to begin collecting access charges from IP telephony providers was effective in bringing the issue to the forefront, Mr. McKnight said. "This is really a shot across the bow to put pressure on the FCC and state regulators," he said, predicting the matter soon would be in the courts.... Nevertheless, regulators are afraid to take action because they know IP telephony can move into the mainstream, and they don't want to prevent that by prematurely regulating what still is a relatively small pot of money, said Mr. McKnight.... "This is an issue that's not going to go away quickly," ICG's Mr. Bryan said. "This reflects the fear that the Bell operating companies have, correctly, that this is the start of the end of their business." He said IP telephony might be the "tool that brings down access charges," an FCC goal when it issued its access charge reform order last year. He stated, "There is only one concern, and that concern is Farmer Brown: universal service." <<<
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There are a lot of things going on here. While Mr. Bryan concedes that Farmer Brown may be left out in left field without a line to phone 911 with, I don't see him coming up with any viable alternatives, and that's where his company's argument falls short.
Evslin, on the other hand, comes to a side bar agreement with Bell Atlantic on a separate kind of access charge (colocation charge melded with a termination charge.... what's that all about? isn't that the same as an access, origination & termination charge?)... and then Evslin goes on to boast [ in another post printed here] about how every ITSP should do what he's done. Go figure.
Telco rates are weighted, partially keyed to itemized costs per actual unit sold, and partially keyed to overall operating company costs... including the costs for delivering services to users who are not in optimal [read: very remote] locations.
In short, there is price averaging still going on that makes it possible to sustain support for remote users for basic services at a pricing tier close to, or identical to, urban users.
Once you start to tamper with the funds (universal service funds included here, lopped onto the access charge reserves) that the ILECs have at their disposal, I think that there had better be an alternative in place to take up the slac, or else I think that we can expect to see some serious repercussions and adverse effects extended to many outlying residential and business users, including those who can least afford it.
Even if these repercussions are the result of the ILEC wanting to make a point, they'll exist just the same. At the very least, some other form of subsidy will need to be instituted to satisfy a whole lot of users' needs, and I haven't heard anything yet that spells out just how that will be done, short of some suggestions that smack of a total switch to socialized services. < Yecht! >
This would impact everyone, because one of the most important attributes of the PSTN as we know it today is universal reach. VoIP, itself, depends on the reach of local copper to the greater extent, so even VoIP wont come to the rescue if funding is removed from the ILECs.
Wish I had a few contiguous weeks or months to sort this out, but I don't ;-)
Later, Frank C. |
