The question is where are the real costs of a local phone call? Are they in the call setup? Are they in the length of time for the call? Some combination? What switch resources need to be expanded to deal with long holding time calls? What switch resources can be reduced if you need to process fewer call setups? It is possible that modem calls are a bad deal for phone companies, but it is also possible they are a good deal. Does anyone really know? -Jeff Ogden Merit This is classic traffic engineering. The cost of providing service is almost exclusively governed by capacity size, and that is chosen following a sole parameter: peak usage. You never ever want to run out of local switch trunks for local calls: modern switch matrixes can interconnect 50% of all lines internally, interconnecting trunks to other switches can handle maybe 20% of line capacity. Traffic patterns show that peak usage is during business hours, with call volume (lines engaged) being 3-4 times the average of after-hour use. There is no telco in the world, that can show me they are being ripped off by the growing number of modem users, this is really just another case of 'cashing in on the super information highway' . The few people who stay on 24 hours are an EXCEPTION, not a rule, and in most cases such people have several phone lines in their home (I have 3, one is on 24 hours , hence on average I don't use my phone lines more than 33% of all times, as the other lines are seldomly in use: the phone co. is cashing in by selling me three lines !). Also: there are many people who get second phone lines exclusively for modem use now, hence a single modem line an ISP has installed might create an additional 2-3 lines with residential customers. Did you ever hear the phone co. complaining about too many residential (or other) phone lines ? All Nynex whines of how residential service would really cost them much more than the customer is actually paying aside: this must be one of the really dirty secrets of the RBOCS. Short: off-peak usage of telco facilities is not costing the telco any real money, (this is especially true for LD companies!) as the capacity planning (and purchase) is governed by peak usage, any screams by them in that general direction should be ignored, their monopolistic actions fought with a vengeance: EdTel of Edmonton,Alberta started making noises as described no sooner than they were beginning to plan their own internet service. I hear they have a special tariff discount for fax lines (business or residential) too, or at least used to. Are they talking with two tounges ? bye,Kai