Re; Timed local calls

[daryl@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca]

On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Stewart Fist wrote:
<snip>
> 
> The point is that the amendment (which called for an untimed option for
> both business and residential, voice and data) was not passed, so the bill
> passed as it stood, which provided for mandatory "timed business data
> calls".
     To reiterate a point of a few weeks back:
     "business data calls" might be interpreted to apply to any
tramnsmission running through an ISP, and so apply to all data
transmissions, whether originating from a residential or business line.
> 
> I doubt very much whether they will now move ahead on the Timed
> Receive-Only calls option.  This would be political suicide for the
> government, and so they wouldn't allow Telstra to try this on.
> 
> Stewart Fist
     "Political suicide"? That rather depends on the electoral
calculations
made by party strategists: they may well decide that the financial
benefits to the treasury of a Telstra sale would outweigh an "inevitable"
move to timed calls, in the minds of the masses.
     Up here, the government-owned telephone company was privatised after
a money-losing cellular telephone manufacturing enterprise was hived off
(with a loss of $500,000,000 Can), and the electorate did not remember it
come election time. It wasn't even an issue. The neo-conservative
strategists in power here and in Oz (and those formerly in power in N.Z.)
are in close contact, so I am sure that this sheep-like behaviour has not
gone unnoticed. Besides that, Australia is full of sheep, and many are 
required by law to vote, I hear. 
                                           . . . daryl . . .
                                          Lost in c'Space . . .