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To: Dwight Taylor who wrote (6481)	1/22/1998 10:28:00 AM
From: Larry S.	Respond to of 116779

OFF TOPIC Ben, It is not the LD carriers that have the problem. It is the local service providers. Most local telephone service to residential customers is provided for a flat rate for all calls within a local area. Most calls (connections) to the servers of Internet service providers involve connections within a local calling area covered by the flat rate. The problem is that the rate is based on the average usage of telephone subscribers. But, usage of the line of most subscribers who use their line for access to the Internet is many times the average usage for ordinary telephone usage. A large part of the cost of providing telephone service is usage (traffic) dependent. The companies can raise the cost of your local service to compensate for the increase in the average usage of the ordinary telephone line caused by the Internet access traffic but that would place the major part of the burden on the non-Internet user. Alternatively, the flat rate could be dropped and a message unit service offered but most customers would object and billing costs would increase. An alternative is to place a special charge on connections to the Internet or for telephone service that is frequently used for Internet access. This is an over simplification of the problem but hopefully enough to make it clear that the problem is real. However, the motivation for the petition before the FCC may not be simply to assure that tariffs for plain old telephone service (POTS) are fair. The introduction of new technology that will permit the local carriers to provide a data service over your telephone line without interfering with your telephone service and work with new network infrastructure that will efficiently handle you Internet access and avoid the inappropriate use the network provided for POTS could be delayed. It will cost you more than it costs you today to use your modem on a POTS line for Internet access and most/many of us would not subscribe to the new service, even if it is 100 times faster, unless the tariffs for Internet access using POTS are changed. If cost were not a consideration, we would all be using an ISDN service. Cable operators that are trying to provide a similar service (though most arrangements use your telephone line for transmission in the direction from your PC to the Internet) have the same problem in selling the service. Therefore, one can state that the POTS tariffs are impeding the introduction by telephone companies of new and superior services for Internet access. Many would say that the telephone company people are just trying to expand their business and probably are primarily motivated by that desire. But, they are there to serve us and it is in our interests that they be successful in offering these new services. Regards, Larry Smith