ISP's may be required to pay local Bells for customer dial-up access
Patrick J. Colvin (naripat@westnet.com)
Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:09:06 -0500
There is an article in the January 20th edition of WEBWEEK discussing the
FCC's hearing to possibly impose a fee to Internet Service Providers
(ISP's) for local telephone line access for their customers. This fee may
be up to $1.00 per hour. The local telephone companies argue that modem
calls are causing extremely high usage on their systems and is forcing them
to invest in more equipment. One company, MCI is reported to take just the
opposite position indicating that the small Bell companies are looking for
additional revenue that they are not now charging.
I also read about this in the Gannett paper the other day. The article is
on-line at http://www.nynews.com/news/4n14.htm
The FCC has set up an e-mail address to hear concerns from both ISP's and
consumers. The address is isp@fcc.gov. You can also view comments at the
following web site set up by the FCC: http://www.fcc.gov/isp.html.
-- Patrick