Access costs

[Steve]

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Internet Strikers Protest High Cost of Access

Matt Richtel
NY Times 12/25/98


In the 1960s, agitated students tuned out. In the 1990s, they are
logging off. 

In order to express their frustration with the high cost of Internet
access, students, academics and other cybercitizens around the world
have engaged in a series of digital-era protests: they have shut off
their modems and darkened their Web pages in daylong boycotts. 

In recent months, these organized "Internet strikes" have taken place
in France, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and China,
involving thousands of protesters. 

"The Internet should be accessible for everyone," said Soeren Frey, a
university student in Germany who joined a virtual sit-in there in
early November by shutting down his Web site. "We want to force the
monopolist to lower the local rates or introduce a special Internet
fee." 

While this is not exactly the idealistic rhetoric of, say, 1960s
peacenik revolutionaries, the strikers say there is more at stake
than merely a desire to surf the Net and send e-mail. Some say they
worry their respective cultures will fall behind in the race for
intellectual capital if they do not have widespread, affordable
access to the global network. 

To be sure, the cost of access is higher in some of these countries
than in United States, where unlimited access typically costs $19.95
a month. For instance, in France, Internet users pay roughly $16 a
month for unlimited access, but that does not include anywhere from
$0.70 to $2.50 an hour in local phone charges. Residents of Germany
pay a flat rate of $22 a month for Internet access, plus local
telephone charges of roughly $3 per hour. Heavy Internet users in
Germany can rack up phone bills in the hundreds of dollars each
month. 

Unlike most residents of the United States, consumers in many other
countries are charged for local phone calls on a per-minute basis.
Organizers in Europe calling themselves the Campaign for Unmetered
Telecommunications have set up a Web site to bring various protesters
together to call for a "flat rate" for telephone and Internet
charges. The group is organizing a European Union "day of action" for
some time in 1999. 

However, representatives of telecommunications companies in France and
Germany contend the prices they charge for Internet access are fair. 

"This is not expensive," said Hans Ehnert, spokesman for Deutsche
Telekom, the company that controls much of Germany's
telecommunications infrastructure. Deutsche Telekom operates the
country's dominant ISP, T-Online, and is a target of the protests. 

Ehnert said the protesters are just "scholars and pupils" who want
access "really cheap all day long." He said that, despite protesters'
claims to have orchestrated measurable drops in Internet traffic
during their strikes, the boycotts have actually made no difference
in Internet use. 

Still, Ehnert said T-Online, which has 2.5 million subscribers, is
"lowering aggressively" its prices. 

Meanwhile, in France, the telecommunications provider France Telecom
has reported little impact from an Internet strike held on Sunday,
Dec. 13. Elizabeth Mayeri, spokeswoman for France Telecom, which runs
the dominant ISP, Wanadoo, said traffic dropped 10 percent during the
strike. 

Bernard Martin-Rabaud, the general secretary of the Association of
Discontented Internet Users, which organized the strike, estimated
traffic had dropped 20 to 25 percent. He said the strikers received
"strong support" from other ISPs in France, who also wanted to
protest the local telephone tariffs. 

Martin-Rabaud said the organization has been inspired and stays in
contact with strikers in other countries. The one-day protest on
Sept. 3 in Spain, which some say helped force a reduction in the
local telephone tariffs there, "lent us wings," Martin-Rabaud said.
He said the media in France widely reported the Internet strikes
because of the novelty of the protests. "It was a brand new story to
offer their audience," he said. "They spoke a lot about us." 

This is not the first time Internet users have relied on silence or
boycotts as a form of protest. To protest the Communications Decency
Act, for instance, the controversial United States legislation that
attempted to eliminate "indecency" on the Internet, hundreds of
cyberstrikers took down their Web pages in a "blackout" in 1996. 

However, earlier protests have not had the momentum of the current
series of Internet strikes, according to Adam Clayton Powell III,
vice president of technology and programs for the Freedom Forum, a
free speech organization in Arlington, Va. Powell said the current
wave of protests may signal the beginning of a new era of strikes
online. 

"The technique can be used for any variety of grievances," he said.
"I've begun to wonder whether this is one of a whole series of not
just strikes, but cyber petitions." 

Meanwhile, outside of the developed world, there is a separate reason
why Internet access is not affordable. The problem is not so much
that the costs are unusually high, but that the average wage is so
low that paying for Internet access is a luxury most people cannot
afford, said Martin Burack, executive director of the Internet
Society, an Internet standards and policy organization in Reston, Va.

"The cost of getting 100 e-mails in some countries in Africa is $30
to $35 a month," he said. "People can spend that money on access, or
to feed their families. Those are stark choices." 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 





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