Re: ISDN digest 65

[James Love <love@tap.org>]

  On Tue, 13 Feb 1996, David Jensen wrote:
  > Bill Frezza wrote:
  > >So, how about charging a higher installation fee for remote users?  Nope.
  > >Differential pricing violates a fundamental regulatory tenant under which
  > >city dwellers are gouged to subsidize suburban and rural users. 
  
      Actually, in California and in some NYNEX states this is done now.  
  People who aren't close to the right equipment pay more, sometimes much more.
  
  
  > Let's dump the universal service fraud, too. Do rural people subsidise rents in 
  > cities because city rents are so much more expensive than rural rents?
  
  
       The "universal service fraud" that you don't like is a feature of 
  the analog phone network.  If  you don't like it, persuade several U.S. 
  senators from states like South Dakota and Alaska that its not 
  important.  This urban rural despute doesn't have much to do with the 
  ISDN pricing issue, in most states.  KY had several different residential 
  ISDN tariffs, depending upon where you live.  Several states limit where 
  you can get ISDN, or charge higher fees.  
  
     I personally don't mind if prices are higher where costs are higher,
  for ISDN, depending upon the facts.  What we don't like are prices that
  are way beyond costs. 
  
      A Washington Dc reporter is writing a story about his new Bell
  Atlantic ISDN line.  $126 for the first monthly bill, all for "local"
  calls. 
  
     jamie
  
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  James Love, love@tap.org
  P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036; v. 202/387-8030; f. 202/234-5176
  Consumer Project on Technology; http://www.essential.org/cpt/cpt.html
  Taxpayer Assets Project; http://www.essential.org/tap/tap.html