I've been thinking about this and I think the CLECS and ISP's might be benefitted by the passing of this. I think this bill will do more to hurt the ILECS then help them in the long run. One of the things blocking CLECS from offering local dial tone for residential service is the reciprical compensation. The single biggest item contributing to it is internet dialup. As an example of what I mean: AT&T had been heavily advertizing to get people to select AT&T for local dialtone in my area. The ads all say unlimited, but the fine print limits this to 75 hours a month. I would suspect the limit is due to the amount of usage from modem users dialing into the internet. If this bill passes, I suspect AT&T will take advantage of that and ammend their ads to 75 hours, intenet dialup unlimited. Why should someone who spends alot of online hours on the internet even consider AT&T with the 75 hours/month limit? Once this bill passes, any company interested in offering local dialtone wil no longer have to worry about internet connect time causing large reciprical compensation. I suspect AT&T and other CLECS who are providing or interested in providing local dialtone to residential customers are backing this bill. The short term result may be bad for any CLEC depending on the income, but those that are looking to providde local phone service will find this a great benefit and as a result this is more likely to lead to local dialtone competition against the ILEC. Which will lead to lower costs for phone lines ;) As best I can see, the ILECs tend to be the more incompetent competitors and maybe they will finally put themselves out of business with this encouragement to their compitition. If I had the money, I'd start some planning now to put up my own CO's and lay my own copper/fibre/etc for providing local services. -- Richard Shetron multics@ruserved.com multics@acm.rpi.edu NO UCE What is the Meaning of Life? There is no meaning, It's just a consequence of complex carbon based chemistry; don't worry about it The Super 76, "Free Aspirin and Tender Sympathy", Las Vegas Strip.