Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!brl-adm!adm!KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@mit-mc.ARPA From: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@mit-mc.ARPA (Keith F. Lynch) Newsgroups: comp.os.cpm Subject: Re: Pending FCC ruling threat to modem users Message-ID: <1551@brl-adm.ARPA> Date: Tue, 16-Dec-86 09:02:08 EST Article-I.D.: brl-adm.1551 Posted: Tue Dec 16 09:02:08 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 17-Dec-86 07:18:33 EST Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA Lines: 62 From: Keith Petersen... Mark Fowler, Chairman of the FCC, has been hailed by the press as a "fair market zealot." The chances are very good that he views this proposed reregulation as the magic road to increased competition and fairer pricing for consumers. In a free market, it would not matter to users whether this legislation was passed or not. The legislation does not COMPELL local phone companies to charge four dollars or more per hour for a local phone call to a long distance data service (e.g. PC PURSUIT) it merely ALLOWS them to do so. Since it doesn't cost local phone companies any more to complete a local call to such a service than it costs them to complete any other local call, phone companies would not lose money by not adding this charge. And since any local phone company which chose NOT to charge extra for such calls would get plenty of business from users who formerly used any local phone company which DID decide to add the extra charge, there would certainly be local phone companies which choose not to add this charge. This is how the free market works. HOWEVER, we unfortunately do NOT have a free market in local telephone service. Since each user has no choice which local phone company to use, thanks to a pernicious government-mandated monopoly, most local phone companies probably WILL add this charge if they are allowed to. They know they won't lose any customers to competing firms, since there are no competing firms allowed. In an ideal world, this legislation would be a good thing. Phone companies like any other company should be allowed to charge whatever they wish for their services, subject only to the constraints of the marketplace. But in the context of the captive marketplace, this legislation would be a very bad thing. If phone companies are given a monopoly, their prices have to be regulated by the government, since they are not regulated by the free market. Without regulation, they would be able to charge as much as they could without people abandoning phone service for bicycle messengers or carrier pigeons. Phone service ought to cost the user just a few percent more than the cost to the phone company of providing the service. In a free market, it would. In a regulated mandated monopoly, it might (how could anyone ever tell?). But given an unregulated mandated monopoly, i.e. the worst of both worlds, the local phone companies will sell their services for slightly less than the cost to the user of doing completely without phone service. If Mark Fowler is indeed an advocate of the free market system, this is how it should be explained to him. Write to: Honorable Mark Fowler Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Washington D.C. 20554 Refer to Computer Inquiry III in your letters. ... And hurry! I have heard this matter will be going before the FCC for a vote in the latter part of January or early part of February. Time is running out. I completely agree. Write today! Please reply to me, I am not on most of these lists. ...Keith