W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Keith Petersen) (03/18/88)
From Pg. 6 of the Wall Street Journal for 17 March 1988.
FCC SCRAPS PLAN TO CHARGE FOR COMPUTER
ACCESS TO PHONE SYSTEMS, SOURCES SAY
WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission
has quietly decided to scrap its plan to sharply in-
crease telephone rates for computer users, agency and
congressional sources said.
Last week, the agency informed importamt lawmakers
that it wouldn't go ahead with its plan to assess so-
called access charges of as much as $5.50 per hour per
user to hook up computer-communication networks to lo-
cal telephone systems. An FCC official described the
decision as a tactical move to placate opposition from
Congress and computer users.
"They got the message loud and clear from Congress
that this plan was a political and policy loser", said
a House staffer who was informed of the FCC decision.
The FCC's about-face is a big victory for informa-
tion service companies, who have contended that steep
access charges would have drivem them out of business
by making their services too expensive. Currently,
computer-communications networks are exempt from those
access charges. Computer users around the country
deluged the FCC with about 10,000 letters opposing ac-
cess fees, the most letters the agency has ever gotten
on a telephone issue.
The decision to drop the proposal was made by FCC
Chairman Dennis Patrick and the common-carrier bureau
of the agency, the sources said. Mr. Patrick, whose
office wouldn't comment on the decision formally needs
the vote of at least one of the agency's other two
members to terminate a proposal. But in practice, he
can act unilaterally because, as chairman, he controls
which proposals can come to a vote.
In any event, FCC Commissioner Patricia Diaz Dennis
said she supported the decision to end the access-
charge plan. "We've got a lot of things on our plate,"
she said. That's one that would overcrowd it."
Several agency officials described the FCC's action
as a way of patching up its tattered relations with
Congress which is still fuming over the FCC's decision
to abolish the fairness doctrine.
Last Thursday, [March 10] Rep. Edward Markey (D.,
Mass.), chairman of the House telecommunications sub-
committee, said he would introduce legislation to
kill the access charge - even though agency officials
said they had assured the congressman's staff that the
FCC itself would kill the plan. A Markey aide said he
was only notified an hour before Rep. Markey was to
give a previously scheduled speech on access charges.
"We'll closely monitor the commission's future actions
to insure that this onerous charge doesn't re-emerge
in a new form", Rep. Markey said in a statement yes-
terday.
Rep. Markey and other lawmakers also still oppose
Mr. Patrick's pet plan to radically alter regulation
of American Telephone & Telegraph Co.
FCC and congressional sources said the agency would
proceed, but slowly, with a separate plan to assess
charges of about $4.50 per hour per user to hook up
private telephone networks to local telephone systems.
The FCC believes that both computer-communications
networks and private telephone networks aren't paying
their fair share of the cost of local telephone ser-
vice. But exempting computer-communications networks
has more appeal politically, because the users are
often consumers with limited ability to pay increased
charges.
(end of article)