Settlements, etc., etc.

Mon Aug 24 19:16:00 UTC 1998

I really wanted to stay out of this one, but something that I remembered
from a speech made by an FCC bigwig at ISPCON a couple years ago has
pushed me over the edge.

His (close enough) statement was "At the FCC, the words "regulation" and
"Internet" are not allowed in the same sentence of a document."  Their
word processors were (supposedly) setup as to not allow it.  He stated
that the FCC intended to use new IP services (VoIP, etc) to help break
up foreign communications monopolies.  That is why they were keeping
their hands off.

So the question that I pose is:  Do we actually think that if our greed
or inability to find a good peering model, forces us into a "pay for
what you use" model, the FCC won't change their minds very quickly and
decide that they want their piece of the pie after all?

Deciding who is more important - the sender or receiver - is worse than
maddening.  It's impossible.  That's why caller pays in the Telco world
and they have alot more infrastructure to track those things than we do.
Unfortunatly, I think that this is a train out of control and keeping
the regulators out at this point is impossible.

Knowing GTE's history (i.e., a company that would never have survived
without access charges), who's to say that the BBN movements are not a
precisely calculated move to -force- regulators to step in?

> Derek Elder
> US Web Corporation 
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