peterm@rwing.uucp (Peter Marshall) (12/24/90)
John Higdon makes some very good, and by no means isolated, points about voice-mail and RBOCs. The usual X-subsidy/competition questions are relevant, and so are others, in a wider context. For instance, the little matter of the recent 9th Circuit decision over-ruling the FCC, and subsequent FCC-granted "waivers" to RBOCs. Thus, little questions here too about state jurisdsiction over RBOC VMS as an enhanced service. In the NW, apparently both WA and OR PUCs are attempting to require US West to provide VMS through structurally separate subs. In such examples, RBOC VMS evidently becomes a "point" issue, attracting attention from interests with a stake in the wider issues of ONA and enhanced services. Such has been the case in WA State, where the PUC staff had previously informed USW that they wanted to see VMS in a separate sub. by 1/1/91. This perspective does not even reach another dimension, described here 10/23 as "the tyranny of voice mail." No mere matter this, but as noted in this earlier post, one of treating the person "like a data entry device"; or, to put it differently, a little matter of defining the person as a "data commodity." Yet while these regulators don't seem to attend to this "sociological" dimension of the voice-messaging scene, in WA, at least, they took an initially tough posture. E.g.,:"... the recent Appeals Court decision remanded the Computer III decision back to the FCC and US West has relied on a waiver of Computer III rules in order to offer VMS on a non-regulated basis in the State of Washington. In the opinion of our Attorney General's office, the FCC waiver has no standing in this state ..." (see COMM DAILY, 10/3/90)