DCNA Proposal, docket 37-42: "The New Modem Tax"
Lars Poulsen <lars@cmc.com> Sat, 26 June 1993 07:04 UTC
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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 23:57:49 -0700
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From: Lars Poulsen <lars@cmc.com>
Message-Id: <9306260657.AA07591@Spectrum.CMC.COM>
To: vice.president@whitehouse.gov
Subject: DCNA Proposal, docket 37-42: "The New Modem Tax"
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
Dear Mr Vice President, I have been an admirer of yours since shortly after I moved to this country 13 years ago, to work on building the Internet, a task that still remains the focus of my career, even as it shortly will take me back to my native Denmark for a while. I have been consistently impressed with your consistent vision of a future where high technology and respect for the environment go hand in hand, rather than compete. And when the new administration moved in this past January, I was as exited about your participation, as I was about the Chief's. One of the things I was most excited about, was having someone at the top, who has used the Internet and understands what this new infrastructure can do both for business and for democracy. And I felt confident that such interest from on high would be helpful as the Internet trasnforms itself from a DoD-sponsored research tool for US universities to a ubiquitous information appliance for Fortune 500 companies as well as for grassroots activists around the world. But when I heard about a new tax proposal hidden in docket 37-42 of the proposal for a Data Communications Network Architecture (which I assume is a regulatory appendage to the NREN legislation) I was dismayed. If I understand this correctly, it is a proposal to raise $60 million to finance NREN through a tax on modems as well as a charge to be collected by the local exchange carriers. To put it bluntly, I would rather see the government funding for the NREN deleted than see such taxes imposed at this stage. The network has grown to where it would probably survive as a business tool if the govenrment funding disappeared overnight. I would like to see government institutions connected to the net, not because I want the government to support the network, but because such connections would allow the respective branches of government to perform their mission better. As such, these connections should not be counted as "NREN money" but as agency money. In the hope that these musings may influence the pending legislation appropriately, I shall remain Your humble and obedient servant / Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer Internet E-mail: lars@CMC.COM CMC Network Products / Rockwell Int'l Telephone: +1-805-968-4262 Santa Barbara, CA 93117-3083 TeleFAX: +1-805-968-8256 It almost goes without saying that these opinions are mine, not Rockwell's.
- DCNA Proposal, docket 37-42: "The New Modem Tax" Lars Poulsen