IP: cannot tell who is who -- from telecom Digest

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

From: Adam Gaffin <agaffin () nww com> 
Subject: Telecom Snow Job 
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 13:05:01 -0500 
Organization: Network World Fusion 
Reply-To: agaffin () nww com


In a special report this week, {Network World} Senior Editor David 
Rohde takes a look at the proliferation of groups purporting to 
represent corporate and consumer telecommunications users and finds 
that many are little more than fronts for phone companies. You can 
read his complete report at:
<http://www.nwfusion.com/news/0126snow.html>http://www.nwfusion.com/news/01
26snow.html
If you haven't used NWFusion before, you'll have to register first, 
but it's free. Here's the beginning of his piece:
Washington - Last October, the Federal Communications Commission 
received a 40-page legal briefing with three appendices from a group 
calling itself the Ad Hoc Coalition of Corporate Telecommunications 
Service Managers and Telecommunications Manufacturing Companies.
The coalition, on behalf of signed users, urged the commission to 
approve BellSouth Corp.'s hotly debated application to enter the 
long-distance market in South Carolina. The group said it was certain 
that doing so would give users another option for long-distance 
service and force recalcitrant long-distance carriers to finally start 
competing for local business.
There was just one problem: None of the users were in South 
Carolina. The brief was written by Washington, D.C., communications 
lawyer Rodney Joyce, but the users contacted by Network World said 
they never paid Joyce to write the brief. Instead, they said Joyce 
contacted them to cosign what they thought was an objective statement 
to the FCC on increasing competition in telecommunications.
Who paid for the brief? Joyce's client: BellSouth.
Welcome to Washington, D.C., where the 2-year-old Telecommunications 
Act of 1996 is falling apart and two groups of warring carriers have 
desperately sought to marshal a confused public to their way of 
thinking with ''user groups'' that produce surveys, filings and 
studies proving it is the other guy's fault.


Adam Gaffin 
Online Editor, Network World 
agaffin () nww com / (508) 820-7433