In a long-anticipated vote, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday decided that dial-up Internet calls are interstate in nature and not local.

If this decision becomes final, then here is a way to pay for your new phone bill: sell the internet golden geese short. For starters we could sell AOL, YAHOO, and Amazaon.com.

I was planning on selling these short anyway. What would be some other short candidates?

-- Tomcat (tomcat@tampabay.rr.com), February 25, 1999

Answers

Tomcat,

gee, didn't think about that.... there's a slew of I-net companies but that's really volatile....

-- Texan (gone@ranch.com), February 25, 1999.

Don't be causing a stock market PANIC now folks. Just because the FCC seems intent on wrecking the Internet as we know it doesn't mean you need to disobey Mr Greenspan and the President and bail out of the stock lottery, I mean, market.

All is well. Buy more hyper-inflated Internet stocks. Nothing can burst the market bubble. Not even one hand of the government trying to strangle the golden-egg laying goose as the other is reaching inside it trying to find another egg.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 25, 1999.

Tomcat, sounds like the FCC sold us short. This could go down as the single most stupid regulation ever..if passed. Killing the fastest growing segment of the economy is typical government. Greenspan must be pulling his hair out..oops..forgot. I had not heard about the merger of the telcos and the FCC. When did that happen? How about an IPO of the FCC? Stock symbol could be F*CU.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), February 25, 1999.

Don't panic folks. The charging changes won't affect dial-up charges for customers. http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/18129.html This is old news.

-- (someone@somewhere.com), February 26, 1999.

if my phone bill goes up i'll sign off quicker than you can hang up on a telephone soliciter! then i'll take my computer out and blast the shi# out of it with my shotgun!

-- ed (edrider007@aol.com), February 26, 1999.

This was old news, but I'm glad it was brought up again because those wanting to extract every dollar from "the upstart carriers," wil most likely bring it up again. And we who depend on the Net for real news, instead of the pretty news from the pretty faces of the mainstream media, will end up paying the bill as usual.

Ed, if this ever does pass let's begin a movement to disconnect from the Internet, and stage a public shootout of personal computers. One of the finest images I carry in my mind, is of Edward Abbey standing proudly beside his TV, which he has just shot.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 26, 1999.

New entrepreneurial opportunity in wireless internet connections.
Short wave, encrypted, spread spectrum.

-- a (A@AisA.com), February 26, 1999.

<>

Sorry - it's already been invented and sold. We (US taxpayers, DOD) paid for it, developed it, implemented it for secure DOD communications.

But Clinton already arranged for it to be sold to the Chinese secret police and army/stategic rocket forces so they can have secure, hazard free encrypted, interception-proof communications between their military and police units. Oh - and so we (the NSA) can't decrypt their communications.

But Clinton has made sure that the clipper chip (and other, older technology) still makes it practical to intercept US citizen-citizen communications.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.R@csaatl.com), February 26, 1999.