At 17:51 5/14/2000, J. Kelly wrote:
>Huh?

Now that we've established that HR 1291 is a real bill, that it did indeed
pass out of committee on Friday, and that it explicitly declares the
possibility of access charges to providers of voice services on the Internet...

...the interesting (to some) question is whether it is a good or a bad
thing that this bill should become law.  The opposing interests, at least
on the face of things, are those who use the Internet for telephony, who
wish the cost to be distributed amongst everyone as it is now; and those
who do not so use the Internet, who might rather wish that the voice users
pay for their own bandwidth.

However the situation could be (and no doubt is) argued in a number of
directions, such as: If I have to pay for voice bandwidth, why shouldn't
you have to pay for downloading pictures, and most especially for
video?  Why shouldn't there be a surcharge for people with enormous
websites that take a lot of bandwidth to load?  Why shouldn't there be a
surcharge for people with very popular websites that generate enormous
amounts of traffic.  Et cetera.

:)
david
David Beierl - Providence, RI
  http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"