SHENANDOAH-L Archives

From: Richard Pence <>
Subject: "Internet Access Charges"
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:20:25 -0500

[The following was sent to Michael Harris, who posted a message in this list
concerning the above subject.]

Michael, by now I am sure you know that the message you forwarded to many
people, including the Shenandoah Mailing List, is - to be charitable -
inaccurate.
For starters, Craig, the list owner, warned that it was a hoax in the list
more than two weeks. ago.

There never has been before the Federal Communications Commission a
proceeding such as described in the message. In 1996 - yes, 1996 - the FCC's
Common Carrier Bureau did issue a NOI (Notice of Inquiry) seeking comments
on how the agency might approach the problems involved in meeting the
increased demands on local switching stations that has been created by
growing Internet usuage. The bureau at that time rejected the notion that
local companies be allowed to charge an access fee to Internet Service
Providers similar to that levied on long-distance carriers. Please note that
the e-mail address in the message <> was set up to receive
comment on that NOI and the deadline for comments was MARCH 1997 - nearly a
year ago!

You can verify any of the above by visiting http://www.fcc.gov/isp

It is intereresting to me to follow the path of this particular message
(identical to many others that have been floating around for well over a year!).

You received the message from someone named Helen, who says she received it
from someone who said he/she received it from his/her daughter in New
Jersey. The person who passed it to Helen said that her daughter's husband
works for a division of AT&T, but the daughter (Beverly) didn't say she got
any information from her husband; what she said is that someone else sent
her the message. (The fact that someone's daughter's hunsband works for a
division of AT&T is hardly relevant anyway.)

With messages such as this is it usually quite easy to determine whether the
issue is real simply by examining the content. In this case there is no
source given for the information (except "I received this message") nor is
any information given that allows verification or which would let a person
get enough information to intelligently comment on the issue. Further, FCC
regulations require that comments be referenced by either the name or the
docket number of the proceeding - neither of which is given in the message.
(The FCC needs this information so it can figure out which of several dozen
current dockets a sizeable hunk of the American public is hysterically
uninformed about this time. <G>)

You may want to notify all those you sent this message to that they can save
themselves some embarrassment by ignoring it. In any case, it is hard for me
to imagine what comments one would make to the FCC based on the flimsy (and
totally false) information in the message. I suppose you could holler, "The
sky is falling!
Richard A. Pence, 3211 Adams Ct, Fairfax, VA 22030-1900

http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/index.ht

This thread:

• "Internet Access Charges" by Richard Pence <>