From: aashton@xmission.com (Arden & Lorraine Ashton) Subject: ISDN scheduling hearing Date: 14 May 1996 18:03:58 -0600 (MDT) US West seems to have changed their mind about trying to throw out MCI and Intel. Tomorrow morning at the scheduling hearing they will be asking to pospone the ISDN hearings. A possible date when the PSC schedule is free is July 10, 11 and 12th. Tomorrow we'll find out what everyone agrees on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: aashton@xmission.com (Arden & Lorraine Ashton) Subject: New Hearing dates for ISDN Date: 15 May 1996 13:54:30 -0600 (MDT) This morning there was a scheduling hearing for ISDN. US West had asked for it since they were protesting Intel and MCI being certified as intervenors so late in the game. Yesterday US West also decided to try to push back the ISDN hearing. At first June was proposed but by late afternoon they were looking at July 10, 11 and 12th. This morning everything was changed again. My witness Scott Rafferty could not make it those dates and since I am a budget operation and US West was not willing to pay the thousands of dollars necessary for me to reschedule everything, things were left pretty much alone. After an hour of lively discussion this is what Steve Mecham of the PSC ordered to happen: The ISDN hearings will still be May 22 and 23. However there was also the addition of May 24th. The hearings were lengthened since by the last count there are now 15 witnesses. Another new day of hearings was also added, June 13th. This will be a date certain for the Division of Public Utilities. Their witnesses will be heard on this day. Since they have only just received the testimony from Bill Pollard in the last few days and have not yet shared details this was done to give US West time to see the Division's testimony and then prepare their rebuttal. The hearings of June 22, 23 and 24th will begin at 9 a.m. but June 13th they will begin at 10 a.m. Greg Monson, the attorney for US West withdraw the petition to eliminate Intel and MC from the list of itnerveners. MCI also said that they are not now asking for discovery. (This was a bone of contention with US West since it is happening so late.) MCI will also be scheduled last on the first three days of the hearings since somehow they overlooked sending US West a copy of the testimony of their witnesses. This will give US West a little more time to review what MCI has to say Laurie Noda, of the Division, has prepared a witness list. She has been very efficient and I am enclosing a copy of what she has already faxed me since the hearing. May 22: Karen Baird--US West Geri Santos-Rach--US West Michael Ileo--Committe of Consumer Services Tad Hotu-Intel May 23: Scott Raffety (ours) James Love (ours) Ramona Rouse-AT&T Pat Parker--AT&T May 24: Jack Lynott-AT&T Helmuth Orthner (ours) Rebecca Bennett--MCI June 13th-Division of Public Utilities witnesses Audrey Curtiss William Pollard (He was involved in the TN study) David Landsbergen Hans Kruse Most of these have filed position statments which we may share with you before the hearings. I hope this will be of help to everyone. I think it is important that people show up at these hearings because it shows the PSC that there really are people out there who take this seriously. Most of their hearings only have a sparse population of staff. I think the public comment day in January was good but by showing up at these hearings we're saying that we haven't forgotten. See you there. . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: aashton@xmission.com (Arden & Lorraine Ashton) Subject: New Mexico ISDN tariffs Date: 15 May 1996 13:57:06 -0600 (MDT) This is a forwarded message from a forwarded message but I think it's pretty exciting. I hope we do this well in Utah--or better. X-Sender: love@essential.essential.org X-UIDL: 0a38b033f82209a9d8a2acc3d65a16b6 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- According to Intel: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- NM commission ruled today re ISDN: -- $40 per month flat rate ISDN for residential users. -- $75 per month flat rate ISDN for business users -- U S WEST ordered to make ISDN available throughout NM by July 1, 1997 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: vhadley@ee.utah.edu (Vince Hadley) Subject: Re: ISDN rate -- Pac-Bel Date: 18 May 1996 20:35:59 GMT I am forwarding this post in case this may contain items of interest to those on the ISDN mailing list. -Vince Hadley vhadley@ee.utah.edu In utah.general, bgeer@xmission.xmission.com (bgeer) wrote: |While cruising Wolfgang Henke's web site (http://www.whnet.com) I ran |across the following info: |The HOME ISDN tariff is scheduled to be approved in August. It's |$22.95 per month and flat rate usage between 5PM to 8AM MO-FR and all |day on weekends. |The "HOME ISDN tariff" phrase is a link to http://www.pacbell.com. |-- |<> Robert Geer & Donna Tomky / * <> |<> bgeer@xmission.com | _o * o * o <> |<> Salt Lake City, Utah | -\<, * <\ |<> U S A | O/ O __ /__, /> <> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: aashton@xmission.com (Arden & Lorraine Ashton) Subject: ISDN hearing report Date: 24 May 1996 06:47:27 -0600 (MDT) Just thought you'd be interested in our daily report from Utah on how the ISDN hearings are going. Today will be the last of three days and then we'll break until June 13 when we'll hear the testimony from the Division of Public Utilities and their witnesses. Sue Ashdown has been our reporter. ************ Today (Wednesday May 22) was the first day in lethally boring testimony from U.S. West's "demand" expert. Karen Baird (straight from the cast of Fargo?) took the stand to testify ad nauseam that she either didn't know any particularly useful information or was simply not familiar with anything at U.S. West beyond the closet where she is evidently kept. U.S. West's strategy appears to consist of calling witnesses with such a narrow view of operations at the company that they are unable to testify in any really material or cohesive way. Repeatedly, Ms. Baird deferred her answers to U.S. West's future witness, "cost expert" Geri Santos-Rach. Get ready for more of the same from Santos-Rach, who will probably be unable to testify about anything relevant because she knows nothing about how Baird managed her demand studies, upon which costs have been based. Scott Rafferty, counsel for Arden & Lorraine Ashton who have filed as intervenors, asked Ms. Baird if she was familiar with the Utah Internet Service Provider directory (see the back of Computer Credible). "No," Ms. Baird replied. "Have you heard of a firm by the name of XMission?" he asked. Amazingly, U.S. West seems to have allowed Ms. Baird out of sequestration long enough to skim-read the testimony from the January ISDN hearing, and the name struck some dim chord in her memory. Had Ms. Baird contacted XMission when preparing its demand studies? "No," replied Ms. Baird, though she said that she had no knowledge of contacts possibly made with XMission by U.S. West's sales or-gan-IZ-a-tion. (We can testify that there were none). Had Ms. Baird contacted any other Utah Internet Service Provider when preparing its demand studies? Hmmm, let's guess what her answer was??? Why, Ms. Baird's Internet Service Provider of choice for her Utah ISDN demand studies was....Prodigy!!! And no, Ms. Baird was not aware that Sears has recently divested itself of Prodigy and that with the most shriveled subscriber list of any of the national on-line service providers, Prodigy is re-thinking its entire strategy. Other surprising testimony surfaced from U.S. West's counsel who assured everyone present, and on the record, that U.S. West LOSES money when it sells second lines. Come again? Oxymoronic if true. Or maybe just moronic. With expert witnesses like this, no wonder there's more backpedaling going on here than at a pool party in the Everglades (apologies to Valujet 592). Hearings resume tomorrow (Thursday May 23) at 8:30 a.m. in the hearing room on the fourth floor of the Heber Wells Building (160 E. 300 S.). U.S. West could probably save a lot of time if someone would donate the following flash cards to their witnesses: "I don't know" "I apologize, but I'm not aware of that" "I'm sorry, I'm just trying to be upfront but I don't know" and "I really have nothing to do with that department." Sue Ashdown Any opinions expressed are my own, exclusively. **************** Thursday's report: "Mischaracterization" is one of U.S. West's favorite words. We hear it every time one of their smokescreens is in danger of dissolving, and the emperor stands to be exposed in all his lonely naked glory. Geri Santos-Rach, U.S. West's cost expert, dragged the word out again today at the Public Service Commission hearings on ISDN as she testified that ISDN resources are not simply sitting idle waiting to be used; extra construction must occur. Yeah, we know all about those nasty card switches. Well, it's not likely that U.S. West will switch any cards any sooner than they bloody well have to, since they've already determined that there's no demand for ISDN in many parts of Utah. If you have any friends in the following areas, you may want to encourage them to sign up for our ISDN mailing list, because U.S. West has determined that there is no (read ZERO) demand for ISDN in these parts of the state: Alta, Beaver, Brianhead, Brigham City, Cedar City, Circleville, Coaville, Corinne, Duchesne, Dugway, East Carbon, Enterprise, Ephraim, Eureka, Farmington, Goshen, Grantsville, Hanksville, Heber City, Helper, Huntsville, Hurricane, Hyrum, Kanab, Leeds, Marysvale, Milford, Minersville, Monroe, Morgan, Mountain Green, Mt. Pleasant, Nephi, Parowan, Payson, Richmond, Roosevelt, Salem, Salina, Santaquin, Smithfield, Spanish Fork, Springdale, St. George, Vernal, Veyo, Wendover. Scott Rafferty, counsel for Arden and Lorraine Ashton, pointed out that ISDN has many uses beyond its obvious business applications. He referred the commission to half a dozen web sites in St. George alone, where U.S. West has determined there is no need for ISDN, as well as several posted by individuals throughout Utah for purely personal reasons. Additionally he suggested many different residential applications for ISDN which not surprisingly, mesh remarkably well with Governor Leavitt's vision for the delivery of Information Highway services to Utah residents. Santos-Rach, who obviously has never used the Internet in any meaningful way, said that she would characterize the testimony from all previous witnesses regarding ISDN applications in the home as "work" being done at home. Rafferty, referring to his own previous testimony, asked if she would consider geneaology research as "work" done at home? Santos-Rach made the blowfish face to which we became so accustomed during Karen Baird's testimony yesterday, and puffed, "Well, I suppose that would depend on what it was being done for." And, continued Rafferty, would she consider a church's Sunday liturgy being made available via the Internet to someone at home with a sick child as "work" at home? "No," she admitted, these were plausible non-work uses, and exceptions to her general impression which is that people using the Internet at home are using it for WORK. We'll try to keep that in mind the next time we book a vacation to Playa del Carmen, using some of the excellent references available on the Web. It's WORK! Rafferty urged the commission to consider carefully the consequences of their decision, using as an analogy the decision made not so very long ago in Maryland to abandon the possibility of railroad transportation in favor of canal-based shipping. Only thirty years later, this stupendously bad decision forced western Maryland into economic isolation, granting economic honors instead to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a blow from which western Maryland has never fully recovered. Not pricing ISDN low enough (as low or lower than normal service lines, commonly referred to as POTS, or Plain Old Telephone Service) to encourage widespread demand among residential consumers will be the first step toward depriving Utah residents of information access already enjoyed by many of their neighbors in nearby states. It is an embarrassment for the state, and will be an embarrassment for the governor, and unlike the Maryland transportation decision, the consequences will be felt not in thirty years, but in the next election cycle. Excellent testimony was also presented by Jamie Love, from Ralph Nader's Consumer Technology Project, and Tad Hetu, from Intel, who when asked by MCI's counsel if Intel had ever introduced a product without any marketing, p.r., or advertising efforts whatsoever (as U.S. West has done with ISDN), replied, "No, stealth marketing of a product is in our experience not very successful." More on Jamie Love's testimony tomorrow - I haven't had time to really do it justice here. Hearings resume tomorrow at 9 a.m. at the Heber Wells Building (160 E. 300 S. 4th floor hearing room). Everyone is welcome, and tomorrow should be an interesting day as cross-examination of Ms. Santos-Rach continues, and AT&T adds testimony of its own supporting reasonable rates. Where were the flash cards I expected to see from some faithful reader? Sue Ashdown Any opinions expressed are my own, exclusively. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: aashton@xmission.com (Arden & Lorraine Ashton) Subject: Friday ISDN hearings Date: 25 May 1996 11:01:00 -0600 (MDT) May 24, 1996 "(U.S. West has been) a paradigm of obfuscation and evasion." This today from the mouth of U.S. West's cost expert, Geri Santos-Rach, at the ISDN hearings before the Public Service Commission. To be fair, she was reading from the New Mexico Public Service Commission's statement in the ISDN rate case there, but the point is clear. With "grotesquely flawed" cost and demand studies, the New Mexico Commission ultimately forced U.S. West to accept a rate for ISDN far below what U.S. West had proposed, but still not what might be considered reasonable to make ISDN achieve any sort of significant penetration in the residential market. Counsel for U.S. West seized on evidence submitted by Jamie Love, of Ralph Nader's Consumer Technology Project, in its cross-examination of witnesses, most notably by comparing Nynex's proposed $800+ rate for unlimited flat rate ISDN with U.S. West's incredibly cheap $149 flat rate, and $198 (or $99) for Bell Atlantic's 100 hour rate option, compared to U.S. West's $68.00 200 hour usage rate. Well okay, Mao killed what, 30 million people? Stalin about 15 million? Hitler 6 million? Relativity can be somewhat soothing with the proper spin. Testimony was heard (though I missed most of it) from John P. Lynott on behalf of AT&T, describing ISDN technology and the most cost-effective method for its deployment (the method U.S. West prefers not to use). Finally we heard a description of the card required to make the ISDN switch. Roughly the size of a playing card, it is about 2"x4". Interestingly neither U.S. West's cost expert nor its demand expert appears to have taken the time to walk down to the switch room to take a look at the technology that so terrorizes their employer, which is fine, after all they're not engineers are they? They are "expert witnesses" however, so you'd think they might want to know at least a little about the product they are working so hard to demonize. Then again, that would destroy the U.S. West strategy of compartmentalizing its witnesses so that they are incapable of testifying in any substantial way. Mr. Lynott's testimony included reference to TR-303, which in certain cases is the most efficient technology for ISDN delivery, and which naturally, U.S. West has excluded as an application in its cost studies. Counsel for U.S. West asked Mr. Lynott which companies manufacture TR-303, and Mr. Lynott answered that a number of vendors manufacture it; Lucent, Siemens, and a few others which I cannot now recall. Lucent however is the only one manufacturing TR-303 to a Bell standard (don't press me for details). U.S. West's point of course, is that Lucent is owned by AT&T (though it has spun off in it's own Initial Public Offering) and that AT&T stands to gain quite a lot from sales of TR-303 to U.S. West, and this is the real reason TR-303 is mentioned as the technology of choice. U.S. West Moral: cut off your nose to spite your face. Plan for bad technology in the face of a better product to punish the people who sell it and had the nerve to point out your error. Dr. Helmuth Orthner of the University of Utah testified that as a physician there are many uses for telemedicine accomplished through ISDN, not least the secure transfer of confidential information, and improved patient to doctor communication, and he was frankly shocked to find that U.S. West forecasts no demand for ISDN in St. George and Wendover, two places where he is personally involved with satellite clinics. Finally, counsel for MCI, after receiving a passed note from yours truly was kind enough to request that I be put on the stand. Steve Mecham graciously allowed it, though this is certainly not customary or expected. I expressed my concern that U.S. West cost and demand studies appear to be based on an inordinate fear that residential ISDN customers will "nail up" their lines 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In other words, U.S. West envisions a customer group glued to their home computers non-stop. While I conceded that this is a real possibility for certain businesses, and even certain home office based businesses, it is ludicrous in terms of individual service, and time on line could actually be expected to decrease when data can be transferred 4-5 times as fast. Furthermore I said, this type of possibility is just as unappetizing for Internet Service Providers as it is for the phone company since we depend on shared resources. U.S. West asked if I felt 100 hours might be an average residential use, and I said yes, which may have been a mistake. It would probably be enough for me, but not for a lot of people, and the point is that people don't like to be metered. Sorry. I can't think of everything. I am still neglecting an account of Jamie Love's testimony, who was perhaps the most important witness of all with his position as director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Technology Project, and his ISDN page on the Internet. He is a true consumer advocate and ISDN expert. I will summarize it soon, I promise. Many many thanks are owed to Arden & Lorraine Ashton, two private citizens who filed to intervene in this case out of pure public interest, and arranged for Mr. Love and Mr. Rafferty to come to Utah to testify. Right now I'm dog-tired and am signing off to recuperate. Sue Ashdown zero@xmission.com Any opinions expressed are my own, exclusively. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: aashton@xmission.com (Arden & Lorraine Ashton) Subject: New US West rates for ISDN Date: 28 May 1996 09:07:58 -0600 (MDT) Last Thursday, in the opening statements of the ISDN hearings, US West proposed some revisions to the ISDN tariff. (The Friday edition of the Salt Lake Tribune reported them.) For those of you that are interested, here they are. You will notice the addition of a 40 hour usage allowance as well as different measured rates for off-peak hours. It is also of interest that the flat rate has been lowered to $149. Some of the interveners (MCI) were protesting that US West was signing long-term contracts but were willing to accept them at no longer than three years. Monthly Rate Measured No Usage Allowance $39 Measured /40 hours Usage Allowance $50 Measured/200 hours Usage Allowance $68 Flat $149 Usage--During Peak Period (8-5) $0.03/min Usage--Off Peak $0.015/min The "Measured with 200 Hours Usage Allowance" and "Flat" rate service options will have discounts based on number of lines and length of contract. Rate stability plans for the tariff will be limited to a maximum of three-year terms. Zone A and B structure will be eliminated. There will be a single Zone A at the above rates.