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PHREAK - Netscape builds in telephony.

Sent from: Mark.Grant@isltd.insignia.com (Mark Grant)

FringeWare Daily <email@fringeware.com> said :

> that's just one former
>   Bell-Labbies' opinion; what does the rest of the list think? - pxn ]

Well, it seems clear that they're just pushing for restrictions in
order to maintain their high charges against competition (Oblibertarian
- of course, if there was a free market without government regulation
this would be impossible). Not only are telcos not going to be put out
of business by the Internet (since we rent lines from them), they are
also going to make more money as more people use net-phone software,
since we'll have to buy faster lines to deal with all the extra data.

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if local ISPs start to restrict use
of net-phone software themselves. It's so high-bandwidth compared to
other net use (e.g. email) that to get reasonable performance they're
going to have to upgrade their lines or charge users per-packet. Demon
(demon.co.uk) in the UK may have banned it already, though that's just
based on a post I read a few months ago.

	Mark