[comp.society] FCC Proposal for Phone Fee Hike

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)