Sue.Welborn@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org (Sue Welborn) (10/15/90)
For anyone looking for information concerning the blocking of calls to
BBS's by Teleconnect, you can find the text of the articles that were
written by contacting Jim Schmickley either by the US Mail address or
on the BBS's listed at the end of this note. The original text is
over 27,000 bytes long, and I did not wish to tie up TELECOM Digest
with four to six very long messages. I am currently waiting for a
reply from Jim as to the current status of the situation. The date of
the last file concerning this matter is January 1989.
Any replies can be directed to:
Sue.Welborn.@p3.f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org
-------------
As many of you know, an attempt by one alternative long distance
telephone company to tell us what bulletin boards we aren't allowed to
call, through the mechanism of "blocking" those numbers, has serious
implications for free telephone communications throughout this
country. If Teleconnect can block computer/data calls, would they not
have as much "right" to also block voice calls to you, your doctor, or
whoever? And, if Teleconnect is permitted to block calls, other long
distance carriers can be expected to follow suit, if they aren't
already.
In eastern Iowa, we are waging a dedicated fight to stop this abuse of
consumers and abridgement of our rights by this long distance carrier.
The battle to date is detailed in this archived file. Yes, the story
is long, but you should find it very interesting. Please read it, and
then help us in the fight for all our rights.
We need your moral support, your help in spreading the word, and any
"blocking" experiences you may have had to add to our ammunition.
And, we also need your financial support to help cover expences
encountered so far and anticipated in the upcoming formal hearing.
Please send contributions to:
Hawkeye Personal Computer Users Group
Anti-Blocking Expense Fund
c/o Pat Alden, Treasurer
840 Maggard
Iowa City, IA 52240
If you wish to communicate with me directly, BUT PLEASE DO NOT SEND
FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO ME, my address is:
James H. Schmickley
7441 Commune Court, N.E.
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402
Telephone (voice): (319) 393-2036
Two local BBSs are serving as clearing houses for additional
information on the blocking situation; they are:
Hawkeye RBBS, Ben Blackstock, SysOp (319) 363-3314
The Forum PCBoard, John Oren, SysOp (319) 373-2975
E-mail on the "blocking" issue may also be posted on QwikNet on the
SYSOPS Echo Conference or the TECH Echo Conference.
msged 1.99S ZTC
Sue's Point of View, Omaha (1:285/666.3)
--- Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390
Sue.Welborn@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org
[Moderator's Note: Actually Sue, if you want to send these articles
along, we'll use a selection here and put them all in the Telecom
Archives for future reference. The blocking of paid traffic by a
telco is quite unethical to say the least, if not actually illegal,
which I suspect it is, without going to look through a bunch of
tariffs. Its the old bit about telcos not being legally permitted to
deny service to *qualified* subscribers; a qualified subscriber being
one who has demonstrated the ability and willingness to pay for the
service; no more, no less. What the customer actually talks ahout on
the phone -- or in this case what data is passed is none of telco's
concern. The subscription includes receiving incoming calls. PAT]TK0JUT1@niu.bitnet (jt) (10/16/90)
I was one of those who, in 1988 and early 1989, had numbers I regularly dialed blocked by Teleconnect. Whatever the legality of the practice, Pat Townson's comment on the (lack of) ethics of this practice should be underscored. When the blocked numbers were dialed, a brief pre-recorded message announced that the number could not be reached. It took a number of persistant calls through the hierarchy and eventually into security and management divisions before they *finally* admitted that the calls were being blocked. I found only two persons in that organization who were relatively undeceptive in initially acknowledging the practice. When I first began my inquiries, I was repeatedly told that it was "probably" a technical bug and the service folk would look into it. On one occasion, after repeated calls, I was told that a particular number would be unblocked, and it was, for about 12 hours, then it was re-blocked. Some of the numbers were "underground" boards, but one was a public BBS. Initial attempts to deal calmly, politely, and reasonably with Teleconnect were unsuccessful. I found them to be arrogant, deceptive, and insensitive. In bureaucratic "polite speak," they essentially said "screw you." Their rationale for blocking was not that the numbers themselves were a problem, but that some users were using "codez" to call, so they stopped *all* calls. Neither the callers nor the sysops were not notified of this practice. Whether blocking is legal or not, it certainly raises ethical questions. Although I unequivocally oppose the practice, I would have better feelings about Teleconnect if they had been upfront from the beginning and warned potential modem users that some numbers would be blocked, or if they had been forthright about their practice. At that time, they also had inferior service to a number of areas, a problem I have never had with either ATT or Sprint. Needless to say, they lost a customer amidst considerable rancor. If anybody is litigating, I still have some copies of the correspondence laying around if they want them. A final thought -- there was an article on the founder of Teleconnect in a recent trade journal. Funny, they mentioned nothing about the blocking practice in the glowing tribute they paid him. [Moderator's Note: But at least they didn't give you the traditional excuses AT&T uses to block calls: (1) the local telco does it, not us; (2) the subscriber receiving the calls asked us to not pass the traffic. :) PAT]
john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (10/16/90)
On Oct 16 at 0:05, TELECOM Moderator writes: > The blocking of paid traffic by a > telco is quite unethical to say the least, if not actually illegal, > which I suspect it is, without going to look through a bunch of > tariffs. It would seem that in addition to being illegal, a telco or IEC could possibly jeapordize its common carrier standing by such actions. One reason that a telco, RCC, or IEC is protected from legal liability as a result of what travels over its facilities is that it is required to serve all qualified customers (those who pay). If any carrier is going to start making judgements about what will and will not be transmitted, assumptions could be made that the management has assumed responsibility for the messages. If some harmful or potentially harmful messages were passed (say, classified material leaked to a reporter) it could be said that the carrier had failed in its (self-imposed) duty. This is the stuff lawsuits are made of. It's called negligence. In essence, a would-be common carrier can't have it both ways. Either it passes all messages on a content-neutral basis, or it assumes responsibity (and liability) for the content of the information it carries. No? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
brian@ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor) (10/18/90)
On Oct 16 at 0:05, TELECOM Moderator writes: > The blocking of paid traffic by a > telco is quite unethical to say the least, if not actually illegal, > which I suspect it is, without going to look through a bunch of > tariffs. The excuse I'd heard was that the blocked BBSs seemed to attract larger numbers of callers using fraudulent calling card numbers and such. Thus the blocking of domestic calls falls into the same category as other carriers blocking calling-card access to entire countries from sections of our own. That doesn't explain why dial-1 or 10xxx service would be blocked, but perhaps their equipment wasn't programmed to tell the difference. Whatever the case, it seemes pretty slimy to me. Brian
ktl@grieg.wag.caltech.edu (10/18/90)
In article <13618@accuvax.nwu.edu>, John Higdon mentions that
blocking of calls to specific numbers could jeopardize the telco's
common carrier standing. Since the carrier is regulating traffic
content, it could be seen as liable for negligence in not stopping
other harmful traffic.
The way that telcos (Pac*Bell in particular) seem to get
around this with regard to undesirable 976 or (900) type traffic is to
get the public utilities commission or equivalent to write the content
regulations into the tariffs. Since the regulation is imposed from
above, there is no liability issue. Since the telcos typically have
the PUCs in their pockets and since the audience for the content is
typically limited and nonvocal, there is little to stop this process.
Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wag.caltech.edu, KTL @ CITCHEM.BITNET, GEnie: K.LIM1)bakerj@ncar.ucar.edu (Jon Baker) (10/20/90)
In article <13618@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > In essence, a would-be common carrier can't have it both ways. Either > it passes all messages on a content-neutral basis, or it assumes > responsibity (and liability) for the content of the information it > carries. No? I agree with you entirely, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Recall GTE terminating transmission of Triple Xtasy? In that case, they seemed to be awfully concerned with the content of what they were transmitting. JB