patth@dasys1.UUCP (Patt Haring) (10/20/87)
Reposted from The Boston Computer Society's Telecomm BBS (617) 786-9788 (300/1200 Baud, 24 hrs) OPUS 1:101/122 from the Boston Herald, October 1, 1987, pg. 48: Computer Users Wired Over Phone Fee Hike By Geoffrey Smith Computer users are in an uproar over a proposed federal regulation that would make it more expensive to reach com- mercial electronic databases over public telephone lines. Their anger has erupted in one of the biggest lobbying campaigns in telephone history. It's also the first-ever lobbying campaign conducted primarily through electronic mass comminucations. Thousands of computer users who share electronic bulletin boards and communications services have mobilized their vast networks - often by simply punching buttons on a keyboard - in a massive political campaign. The cause of the fuss is a proposal by the Federal Communi- cations Commission that amounts to a placing a $5-an-hour sur- charge on telephone access to commerical databases, such as CompuServe and Delphi. Even the Boston Computer Society, a non-profit organization that prides itself on its impartiality, has been drawn into the fray. The society will take its first-ever public stance on a political issue tomorrow, when a congressional committee holds a hearing in Boston over the proposed surcharge. A spokesman for CompuServe, the largest commerical database with some 375,000 subscribers, said the FCC charge would increase a standard $6 monthly fee to as much as $11. "That would affect our customers rather dramatically," said Richard Baker. The FCC says the access fee is aimed at making the database companies pay their share of the cost of the telephone network. voice users of the telephone system now subsidize computer users of the phone system. Rosemary Kimball of the FCC says the charge was not imposed four years ago when long distance companies were hit with a sim- ilar charge because of "rate shock." But "it was made clear at the time that it would be revisited. They've had four years to adjust their fee schedules," she said. In the past two months the FCC has been bombarded with about 9,000 protest letters - most computer-generated. "It's close to the most we've ever had," she said. "I think it's in great part due to the ability of these computer users to contact each other." The only larger-letter-writing campaign in recent memory is an anti-dial-a-porn campaign a few years ago. The House committee that oversees the FCC, headed by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has received more than 3,000 letters. CompuServe and other electronic publishers played a role in organizing the grass roots campaign. For the last two months or so, whenever a subscriber "logged on" to the service with com- puter and modem, CompuServe provided an option send a letter to Washington against the proposal. CompuServe waived the normal fees and printed out and mailed the letter for a 50-cent charge. "Bulletin boards" - shared electronic notepads frequently used by hobbyists - also played a role. Richard tenEyck, head of the BCS's telecommunications group and a witness at tomorrow's hearings, composed a 12-page analysis of the FCC change and a sample protest letter and sent it out through FidoNet, a network of thousands of bulletin boards across the country. "I got most of my information on this through bulletin boards," confided tenEyck. Hobbyists and low-budget users such as schools and libraries which are experimenting with the services will be hurt the most, he said. "A five buck an hour surcharge is going to bring an awful lot of innovation and advancement to a halt," he said. Dialog, an on-line information service, has a classroom instruction program that can potentially reach 144,000 students in Massachusetts at a cost of 2.5 cents a minute. An access charger would bring that up to 8.5 cents a minute. "You can conclude that this would be knocked for a loop," said tenEyck. The proposal doesn't have much support in Wash- ington, except at the FCC. The White House is reportedly against it. And Rep. Markey is opposed. "If the FCC is allowed to impose such a charge it will bring us closer to a two-tiered society of the information rich and the information poor", he said in a statement. (Part 2 of a byline in the Business Section of the Boston Herald, October 1, 1987, pg. 48)