IP: Today (3/25/96) NYT Story on ISDN

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

Ed Andrew's story about ISDN pricing battles in on the front page of the 
Business Section in today's New York Times.  It is also available from 
the NYT Web page, at:


    http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0325isdn.html




The Story includes several graphics and pictures of Stuart Dickson, a
delaware residential ISDN consumer who ran up a $1,014 bill from Bell
Atlantic in one month, and Lorraine Ashton, who is leading a fight against
the US West ISDN tariff in Utah ($184 for flat rate service).  Others who
are quoted include Michael Kleeman (Boston Consulting Group), Tad Hetu
(Intel), Tom Spinks (Washington State Utilities and Transportation
Commission staff), Curt Koeppen (Bell Atlantic), Scott Berman (US West),
Benson Margulies (software engineer from Arlington, MA), Gene Chesser
(Texas ISDN users group), and myself (James Love, Consumer Project on
Technology).  The Web page version includes the NYT Graphic of ISDN 
rates, based upon the CPT survey (current version of survey is at 
http://www.essential.org/cpt/isdn/survey.txt).


At present, there are quite a few battles over ISDN pricing in the Bell
Altantic (in 5 of 7 BA states), US West (WA, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah),
PacBell and Southwest Bell (Texas) areas.  There hasn't been too much
activity in the NYNEX states, despite their very high tariffs (due to the
hefty per minute charges), as yet.  Bell Atlantic, which is under fire in
five states (NJ, Delaware, Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland), is expected
to announce a new ISDN tariff proposal.  BA says that one option might be
$40 per month for 60 hours of 2B use, which is quite a bit better than the
current $102 to $174 that this would cost (depending upon time of day),
but still pretty high [Flat rate ISDN is $17.90 in Arkansas (NATCO), $28
to $34 in four Ameritech States (MI, OH, WI and IL), $29 in Tennessee
(BellSouth) and $46 in Texas, Kansas and Missouri (SBC)]. 


   jamie


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
James Love / love () tap org / P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
Voice: 202/387-8030; Fax 202/234-5176
Center for Study of Responsive Law
   Consumer Project on Technology; http://www.essential.org/cpt
   Taxpayer Assets Project; http://www.tap.org
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