-- do you hear a rip (off) Calling Cell Phones Could Cost More

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Chris Savage <chris.savage () crblaw com>
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2002 10:51:58 -0400
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: <[IP]> Calling Cell Phones Could Cost More

Dave,

> From the perspective of someone who lives the telecom competition wars every
day, this is just more ILEC monopoly power at work.

The FCC said in August 96 that it was illegal under the '96 Act for one
local network (wireless is considered local for these purposes) to charge
another for the privilege of receiving calls.  Since long before that time
wireless had interconnected with landline using a single connection point
per LATA.  All calls from within the LATA to a wireless phone connected this
way ("Type IIA," for the cognoscenti) were free to the caller.

But the wireless carriers had previously been forced to pay coming and
going, like long distance, so the new rule was a revenue hit to the landline
companies.  So the landline companies responded with what amounts to
extortion of the wireless: either you pay me to receive calls anyway,
despite the FCC, or I'll start charging my landline customers toll rates to
call your customers.  "Nice little wireless business you've got there.  It'd
be a shame if anything happened to it..."

In a truly stupid, anticompetitive decision called "TSR Wireless" released
late in 2001, the FCC -- despite having long since declared thate wireless
"local" areas were as big as an entire MTA -- said that it did not violate
the '96 Act for landline companies to impose these charges.

I'll spare you the cost/economic analysis that shows that this is nonsense
from the perspective of the landline companies' network costs.

It now appears that some wireless companies are refusing to cave in to the
extortion, which means calls to wireless numbers will in some cases be toll
when they were not before.

Chris Savage

------ End of Forwarded Message

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