You've probably seen it in various "Urgent! Alert!" messages since you first went onto the Internet - but it may be turning into more than just inside-out spam. The Federal Communications Commission is about to review whether Internet service providers should pay a per-minute fee for connecting to the local telephone network.
This doesn't mean the "tax" is about to become an annoying reality, says MSNBC, but it does mean that the FCC is at least listening to telephone companies who have complained that ISPs should pay access fees - which usually means passing it on to consumers one or the other way.
When modems first became popular, well before the World Wide Web, the FCC turned down the access fee idea, but that was at a time when such access cost about ten cents a minute. The FCC has continued granting the online industry such exemption, but the telephone companies continue lobbying the commission here and there on the issue.
MSNBC says part of the dilemma is that the FCC doesn't really know how an ISP should be charged. For one thing, says a legal adviser to the commission, Rebecca Bayon, you just can't tell when someone is making a voice call or going on the Internet.
But she tells MSNBC it just might be possible to write regulations enabling tracking of such calls - a prospect which might well have civil rights and privacy advocates jittery.
Otherwise, Beyon tells MSNBC, there's a prospect of bringing forth a flat access fee for ISPs. But all such talk remains in the speculation and thinking stage, since the access exemptions still stand and will do so for at least the foreseeable future, MSNBC says.
