[Leica] Re: Urgent: Long Distance Charge for Internet?

["Rob Studdert" <audiob@ozemail.com.au>]

On 3 Dec 98, at 8:50, Jim Brick wrote:

> Hummm... I suppose if someone could figure out when an individual actually
> sends or receives a TCIP packet destined to or from an address connected
> to the "Internet" (rather than the building across town via local switch,
> but still using the phone system), they might come up with some way to
> charge. But it reality, this is an utter impossibility. All it does is
> show how ill informed and outright stupid the gummint is. This would
> require a program to look at each and every Internet packet, get the "to
> and from" address, send that off to another process that would attempt to
> decipher who you are and where your packet is going. And then attempt to
> somehow assess a charge for this, and have that charge find you. AND ALL
> IN REAL TIME. Talk about a bottleneck in gargantuan proportions... A
> processing nightmare.
> 
> Sorry... It's like attempting to censor certain Internet material.
> Impossible. Once a packet leaves your computer (or someone else's
> computer) the route is unknown until it actually makes it to it's
> destination. Long distance fees, censorship, and the like, are all pipe
> dreams by gummint officials.
> 
> Don't waste your effort.
> 
> IMHO
> 
> Jim
> 

Jim,

I would suspect that "Internet use" would be correlated to modem use which 
is easily detected via signal bandwidth analysis in moden exchange 
equipment. So I suspect that under the new proposal the scenario may be 
that if the exchange equipment "sees" a modem in action they would revert 
to a different billing rate.

I have heard of a similar concept here in Australia where no local calls are 
currently timed, the problem lies in the fact that the exchange equipment is 
now under a far greater loading than was projected due to the volume of 
internet users tying up shared exchange resources, often for many hours at 
a time.

Cheers,

Rob Studdert
HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA
Tel +61-2-9554-4110
Fax +61-2-9554-9259
UTC(GMT)  +10 Hours
audiob@ozemail.com.au