On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Jonathan Arneault wrote:

...

I just read (http://www.internews.com/isp-news/1998/06/0301-bell.html) that Bell Atlantic is looking to finally roll out xDSL. However, not as a wholesale, unbundled service, but as an Internet service which will directly compete against ISPs. [snip] for us "little guys" to compete against the behemoths? Has anyone had similar experiences with their primary iLEC (such as PACBell and US West)?

US West just rolled out RADSL in Utah.

$40/month for a 256k bi-directional DSL line

USWEST.NET, US West's ISP, will sell you dedicated internet access over that connection for $19.95/month.

Of course, the number to order either service is the same.

Of course when you call to order the DSL line they might give you a hard sell to also sign-up with USWEST.NET.

Of course they might give out inconsistent and false information that changes with every time you talk to them.

We are a DSL enabled ISP. Our first DSL customer ordered his DSL line and told them he wanted us as his ISP. When the installed his line, they mapped him to USWEST.NET's ISP!!! I also know of two other confirmed cases were the customer chose a local DSL ISP, and they mapped them instead to USWEST.NET.

I could go on and on about the VERY APPALLING situation here with USW and DSL and Internet access, about regulated and unregulated services, etc, etc.

Dax Kelson Internet Connect, Inc.

The preceeding message was forwarded to me by one of our NM ISPs. US West has been co-marketing its Internet service _with_ its RADSL service in all of its 14 states (http://www.uswest.com/com/customers/interprise/dsl/). Actions by ISP groups in Oregon and New Mexico may provide some relief to local ISPs there. I have just put up a listserve for ISPs in the US West states to use in sharing information. Technet has had one for the NM ISPs for several years - it has been a big help in getting out the word about some of these actions. How about uswisp@lists.nm.net? Please feel free to send this out to any interested ISPs. To subscribe, just send an empty note to: uswisp-subscribe@lists.nm.org I believe that all the RBOCs/ILECs have taken or will be taking similar actions. Even Sprint's new ION services are part of this trend. In my opinion, this is anti-competitive behavior by monopoly organizations. I think that many local ISPs will be severly hurt by such actions, and more than a few will close their doors. As I see it - the biggest problem is that local ISPs are not organized and do not know how - or have the forums - to work together to fight actions by a company the size of US West (or other RBOC/ILEC). My company, New Mexico Technet, is one of the larger ISPs in NM. We wholesale Internet access to other ISPs. We have intervened in the NM tariff filing for US West's Megabit services (see http://www.technet.nm.org/press.htm) to attempt to correct some of the things that are very anti-competitive about the proposed tariff. So far it has cost us over $30,000 in legal fees and we have not even had the hearing yet. Most local ISPs cannot do this. Most local ISPs do not know how to take the actions with the FCC or with the state public regulatory agencies so that their concerns can even be heard. Frankly - most ISPs are not members of CIX or of ISP/C - and many of them do not even know about those organizations, or understand why they should care. In NM, the local ISPs come in mostly 2 flavors: those that serve urban areas (Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Los Alamos) who "may" be affected by what US West does but are not sure, and those in rural areas who do not feel they will ever be affected by these actions, and so do not care. In much of US West's 14 state territory - I suspect that this is similar. The local ISPs in the urban areas have mostly seen the other local ISPs as competitors, not collaborators. They have seen US West (or the RBOC/ILEC) as a vendor, not as a competitor. Most local ISPs worry about retribution from US West (or other RBOC/ILEC) (delayed service, unresponsiveness on outages, unfilled orders) if they come on too strong in criticizing a company that they are _so_ dependent on. I am not sure that their concerns are not valid. The local (state) regulatory agencies are overworked and underfunded in this age of telecommunications transition/revolution. It is not that they don't care. It is that they simply have too much on their plates already. Few states provided extra funding to handle all the _new_ issues raised by the 1996 Telecommunications Act at the _state_ regulatory agency level. No one is championing any of this in most states. I think probably because it is not considered a problem by the vast majority of ISP _customers_. I had one of my customers tell me to "just get out of the way" and let US West introduce the high speed service because the customer needed it right away and I was just holding it up. They never saw that US West owned some of the blame in the constant delays, counterfilings, interrogatories, motions to compel, and other actions that have caused this intervention to drag on. Unfortunately, this person is more typical of ISP customers than local ISPs want to believe. The saddest aspect of this is that unless something changes, US West and the other RBOCs/ILECs will likely dominate the supply of Internet access in large urban areas in a few years - and the rural areas will have a great deal less Internet access than they do today. I think the answer is that the local ISPs _and their customers_ have to come together if they want to have choices about ISPs in the future. It will take some of the larger ISPs reaching out to the smaller local ISPs to help them get _all_ of their respective customers informed of the issues. It will take the larger ISPs intervening in more state and FCC proceedings. It will take constant email, listserves, and newsgroups spreading such information - and reaching customers - not just ISPs. It will take some national politicians to "champion" this cause - some who are not worried about losing RBOC/ILEC campaign contributions - which are considerable. It will take involvement by media organizations that are not worried about losing the RBOC advertising revenues - which are also considerable. It will take every local ISP who is harmed by US West actions calling, writing, or emailing their local and national politicians and letting them know that they have informed all of their own customers about the actions by US West or other RBOC/ILEC and informing their customers of the fact that the politician has not responded to these illegal/unethical/anti-competitive actions. In NM, it is now other internet professionals and businesses that have joined ISPs in questioning the actions of US West. Web designers, web page hosting services, internet trainers, web-advertising services and other businesses are starting to realize that US West wants to take their Internet-based business as well. This is a start. Regards, Marianne Marianne Granoff Director of Operations New Mexico Technet, Inc. 5921 Jefferson NE Albuquerque, N.M. 87109 Ph: (505) 345-6555 FAX: (505) 345-6559 email: granoff@nm.net or granoff@technet.nm.org