Summary of Hearing and Call to ACTION

[Aki Namioka]

Sorry for the spam - but this is an important issue and it looks like it 
won't go away any time soon.

Rich Littleton and I went to Olympia yesterday (check out today's P-I 
business section article by Bruce Ramsey esp. the last paragraph :-)   ) 
to attend the hearing on ISPs and the impact on the phone infrastructure.

Here is Rich's trip report with a few edits by me.

Thanks, Aki

-------------------------------------------------------------
     	        SCN at the Senate Energy and Utilities Commitee 
		             Hearing - 2/13/97
			  ACTION ALERT FOR SCN

     The Energy & Utilities Committee of the Washington State Senate held
a hearing on *Issues Pertaining to Access to the Internet.  The real
function of the hearing was for U.S. West to argue for increased rates for
IPSs because, according to U.S. West, these sites were leading to
blockages on regular telephone service. 

     Several groups including ISPs, electronics associations, Microsoft,
and Seattle Community Network testified in opposition to the U.S. West
perspective, saying that there are several reasons for the increased use
of the telephone lines, including telephone promotional drives to get more
long-distance users, increases in faxes, growth in business, and
population increases, as well as internet growth.  The thrust of the
groups opposing the U.S. West approach was (1) blaming the internet growth
was questionable; (2) internet, and other communication growth was
desirable; (3) putting prices on access to the internet will reduce use
and growth; (4) the growth was foreseeable and U.S. West simply did a bad
job of expanding its infrastructure;  (5) U.S. West is making sufficient
revenues from the existing arrangement to handle any needed improvements. 

     Aki Namioka testified that internet access should be kept available
to the population at large and freenets would be hurt by access charges. 
She made the point that in order to truly make the "information highway" 
available to everybody, measured service and other similar pricing 
schemes proposed by US West would have a negative impact.  

    Rich Littleton, an SCN member, testified that the model to use on this
question was the model of a public highway, open to all, rather than a
toll road, which would mean greater prices and fewer users. 

     It appeared that the momentum of the discussion went against U.S. 
West.  The senators did not seem enthusiastic about the U.S. West
approach.  One senator, Lena Swenson, made the point that increased
prices would lead to decreased use. 

     The members of the committee are:  Dino Rossi, Harold Hochstatter,
Bill Finkbeiner (chairman), Lisa Brown, Ken Jacobsen, Lena Swenson, Gary
Strannigan. 

     We request that you contact the committee members and reinforce one
of the points mentioned above.  U.S. West will continue to persuade the
legislature and we need to get our side heard.

     The members of the committee (and their e-mail addresses) are:  

[1] Dino Rossi (rossi_di at leg.wa.gov)
[2] Harold Hochstatter (hochstat_ha at leg.wa.gov)
[3] Bill Finkbeiner (finkbein_bi at leg.wa.gov)
[4] Lisa Brown (brown_li at leg.wa.gov)
[5] Ken Jacobsen (no e-mail addr. listed)@leg.wa.gov
[6] Lena Swanson (swanson_le at leg.wa.gov)
[7] Gary Stannigan (stannig_ga at leg.wa.gov)


Thank you.










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