Volume 4, Number 36 21 September 1987 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Contributing Editor: Dave Lovell Interview Editor: Al Arango FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet Association as its official newsletter. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1:1/1. Copyright 1987 by the International FidoNet Association. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact IFNA at (314) 576-4067. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 Guest Editorial by Don Kulha ............................. 1 Policy4 proposal enclosed ................................ 2 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 3 FCC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ........................ 3 Fido v12 (tm) Echo Conference ............................ 16 FIDO-FAM and OPUS - Answers to common questions & probl .. 17 Security Available For Mail Now .......................... 19 REDCON An EchoMail Idea who's time has come .............. 21 Repair Nightmare ......................................... 23 Vietnam Veterans' Valhalla ............................... 26 3. COLUMNS .................................................. 28 Random Mutterings ........................................ 28 Origin: Angevin Empire ................................... 31 4. FOR SALE ................................................. 33 ALR 386/2 Special Offer To Fidonet Sysops ................ 33 5. NOTICES .................................................. 34 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 34 Latest Software Versions ................................. 34 IFNA Order Form .......................................... 35 IFNA Membership Application .............................. 36 FidoNews 4-36 Page 1 21 Sep 1987 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= This week's guest editorial is by Don Kulha, 1:125/7 On Friday eve at the Net conference in VA, as the after dinner presentations were winding down, Tom Jennings asked if he could say something. The following is a transcript of what he had to say: "I'd like to say something here. "It's not going to be very pleasant and it comes at a real bad time because, I mean, I feel really bad. We're all here and I like everyone here. The purpose of this is supposed to be telecommunicating. I just feel a serious conflict of interest on the board of directors. You figure out, of they on the stand, what the issues are. There's talk of changing standards, changes just assumed to be put in during the next few months; sort of...what committee do we have here? I do not want to be on the board of directors, I intentionally said I do not want to be on the board. I have severe conflict of interest and there are other authors who should not be on the board what-so-ever. "There's no pleasant way to say it and, uh, there it is. You can view this from my point of view [that] there's a rather severe interest in anarchy here. This was an implemented archist scheme of sorts. It's run by the members of the net and we now have a top-down structure. So....for what it's worth, my two cents..." (17 seconds of silence -- Ken closes the meeting) Hearing Tom's emotion filled speech I started thinking about the net, our directions and the dissention within our ranks. We have a great bunch of folks working with IFNA and the various committees. Some of them, and various people in our network, have concerns about where we are going. My own thought is that something important to remember is that our association is a dynamic entity; it changes in relationship to the desires of it's active participants. Active participants are the key words there. Before heading back to VA I heard a lot of folks saying the wouldn't go because they didn't like some of the things they percieved to be happening. Some other seemed to feel that since they were running Opus there was little reason to go -- with which I do most strongly disagree. The conference was not about Fido or any other single thing; it was about communicating and networking. I think of anarchy in our context as not necessarily meaning the absence of order, but that the largest possible number of interest be represented in and help shape our net. Diversity is healthy and it's the yeast we need to keep the net vital, growing and FidoNews 4-36 Page 2 21 Sep 1987 evolving. We really need a lot more of you participating in helping shape our directions IFNA will not be tommorrow what it is today; everything evolves. Membership in IFNA isn't a vote in support for whatever is happening at this particular point in time, I think it's an expression of your interest in promoting communication. The dollars requested just help cover real costs, are well accounted for and (I personally think) act as a bullshit filter, keeping those less than serious from mucking up the works. Everything about IFNA is mutable and will change with the passage of time, and with your participation. Please do. -Don Kulha ----------------------------------------------------------------- This issue of FidoNews is packaged with a special supplement, the complete proposed Policy4 document that was submitted to the Board of Directors at FidoCon IV. Your comments and suggestions are welcome. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 4-36 Page 3 21 Sep 1987 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Jim Cannell 128/13 FCC NOTICE TO RAISE YOUR RATES *************************************************************** This document is an exact copy of the FCC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued on July 17, 1987. The document is provided as a service to the online community by ISSUE DYNAMICS INC., of Washington, DC. IDI is a public policy consulting firm, specializing in telecommunications policy issues, public affairs counseling and issues management. It sponsors the IDI Board 703-734-1796, SYSOP is Sam Simon. The IDI Board features public policy discussions, and information about telecommunications policy issues from Washington, DC. For more information on how to participate before the FCC in this matter call the IDI board, it can be reached over PC Pursuit. *************************************************************** Before The Federal Communications Commission Washington, D.C. 20554 CC Docket No. 87-215 In the Matter of Amendments of Part 69 of the Commission's Rules Relating to Enhanced Service Providers NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULE MAKING Adopted: June 10, 1987: Released: July 17, 1987 By The Commission: I. INTRODUCTION 1. In 1983 we adopted a comprehensive "access charge" plan for the recovery by local exchange carriers (LECs) of the costs associated with the organization and termination of interstate calls.1 At that time, we concluded that the immediate applica- FidoNews 4-36 Page 4 21 Sep 1987 tion of this plan to certain providers of interstate services might unduly burden their operations and cause disruptions in provision of service to the public. Therefore, we granted temporary exemptions from payment of access charges to certain classes of exchange access users, including enhanced service providers. Three years later, in the Second Report and Order in CC Docket No. 86-1, in which we eliminated the exemption for resale carriers, we announced our intention to reexamine the exemption granted to enhanced service providers after our consideration of certain related issues in the Computer III proceeding.2 We recently completed that consideration.3 We issue this Notice of Proposed Rule Making to consider whether interstate access charges should be assessed on enhanced service providers. We tentatively conclude that it is now appropriate that enhanced service providers, like providers of interstate basic services, be assessed access charges for their use of local exchange facilities, and we propose amendments to our rules to accomplish that end. II. BACKGROUND 2. In the access charge proceeding, the first of our four primary goals was the "elimination of unreasonable discrimination and undue preferences among rates for interstate services."4 Specifically, our objective has been to distribute the costs of exchange access in a fair and reasonable manner among all users of exchange access service, irrespective of their designation as carriers, non-carrier service providers, or private customers.5 We noted in 1983 that although many entities used exchange access service, some were paying local business rates.6 We endeavored to establish a more equitable sharing of costs, and initially intended to impose interstate access charges on enhanced service providers for their use of local exchange facilities to originate and terminate their interstate offerings.7 Interstate enhanced services often use common lines and local exchange switches in the same manner as MTS and some MTS equivalent services. To the extent that this is the case, we concluded that equity and efficiency require that those enhanced service providers pay the same charges for exchange access. 3. In the discussion of the application of access charges to enhanced service providers in the First Reconsideration, we said that we wanted to develop a rate structure under which all exchange access users were charged on the same basis.8 In the pre-access charge environment, facilities-based interstate carriers other than AT&T (other common carriers or OCCs) were paying carrier-type access charges in the form of ENFIA rates, while WATS resellers, enhanced service providers, and shares were paying much lower local business rates.9 Despite our resolve to distribute the costs of exchange access among all users of access service, we recognized that the immediate imposition of inter- state access charges on all users of exchange access would have some undesirable consequences. For example, we said that because WATS resellers and enhanced service providers were currently FidoNews 4-36 Page 5 21 Sep 1987 paying local business rates for their interstate access, the immediate imposition of interstate access charges would have a substantial and sudden impact on their costs, which could undermine their ability to continue to provide service while they were adjusting their operations in response to the new access charge rules.10 4. Because of these concerns about rate shock, we exempted certain exchange access users from the payment of certain interstate access charges in the First Reconsideration.11 At that time, we did not intend those exemptions to be permanent,12 and we have since eliminated several of them. For example, in CC Docket No. 86-1, we considered the question of access charge exemptions for resellers. In the First Report and Order in that docket, we eliminated the exemptions from all access charges for WATS resellers and from traffic-sensitive access charges for MTS resellers, on the grounds that these exemptions were uneconomic and inequitable and could no longer be supported by a rate shock rationale.13 We said there that our goal was to promote competition, not to protect competitors, and we regarded the elimination of the exemptions as another step toward an economically rational pricing scheme.14 5. In the 86-1 Second Report and Order, we eliminated the exemption for private line resellers that offer non-MTS/WATS services, which are, in general, data and telex carriers. In that order, we said that data and telex carriers, like carriers offering MTS/WATS-type services, use local exchange facilities to originate and terminate interstate traffic and should pay the same charges as those assessed on other interexchange carriers for their use of the same facilities.15 We also noted that our purpose in adopting the exemption for data and telex carriers in the first place had been to grant transitional rather than permanent relief.16 Finally, we said that our decisions to apply access charges to these resellers, as well as to resellers of MTS and WATS, represented another step toward our objective of distributing the costs of exchange access service in a fair and reasonable manner.17 III. THE PROPOSED CHANGES IN THE ACCESS CHARGE TREATMENT OF ENHANCED SERVICE PROVIDERS 6. When we modified our access charge plan in the First Reconsideration, we granted enhanced service providers an exemption from the payment of such charges because we were concerned about rate shock. We feared that if we imposed full interstate access charges on enhanced service pr