Hi all- Below are excerpts from two articles published the same day, Tuesday, Feb 4, in the Seattle paper, the post intelligencer. In sum they give a nice picture of telco/isp issues, including modem surcharge and metered access service charges, as they play out in the Seattle market. In the Business Section: State Seeks More Data on US West Overloads "State regulators yesterday told US West that it hadn't provided all the information about recent problems with call overloads in downtown Seattle and asked the utility to deliver more by next week." .... "Much of the problem is blaced on the increasing popularity of the Internet services such as America Online. ... Last week, the State asked the phone company for its explanation. US West responded, but yesterday regulators siad their answer wasn't good enough." Glenn Blackmon with the Washington Utilities and Telecommunications Commission was the drafter of the letter, addressed to US West VP Scott McClellan. ****** In the same paper, on the editorial page, Mr. McClellan has a 'response', printed in the form of an op-ed piece: Outdated Policies Driving Force Behind the Traffic Jam at America Online By Scott McClellan "The first response of many people reading the headlines about the massive digital traffic jams plaguing America Online has been to place the blame squarely at the of AOL management. A closer look reveals a second culprit - outdated policies that govern the nation's local telcommunications networks, which actually deliver computer traffic from customers to AOL and then along the internet." The piece than continues claiming that re-dials from AOL customers attempting to find an open modem caused a 60 percent increase in traffic between Seattle and Bellevue (a major local suburb in the Seattle area) over the course of two weeks. ****** -Douglas Tooley