The FCC, Washington and Big Brother Communications Companies

WASHINGTON - Two Senators on Friday called for a congressional hearing to investigate reports that phone and cable companies are unfairly stifling communications over the Internet and on cell phones. Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said the incidents involving several companies, including Comcast Corp., Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., have raised serious concerns over the companies' "power to discriminate against content." They want the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to investigate whether such incidents were based on legitimate business policies or unfair and anticompetitive practices and if more federal regulation is needed. "The phone and cable companies have previously stated that they would never use their market power to operate as content gatekeepers and have called efforts to put rules in place to protect consumers 'a solution in search of a problem,'" they said in a letter to Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, the committee's chairman. A committee spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter. An Associated Press report on Oct. 19 detailed how Comcast Corp. was interfering with file sharing by some of its Internet subscribers. The AP found instances in some areas of the country where traffic was blocked or delayed significantly. Comcast the nation's No. 2 Internet provider has acknowledged "delaying" some subscriber Internet data, but said the delays are temporary and intended to improve surfing for other users. Verizon Wireless in late September denied a request by Naral Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, to use its mobile network for a sign-up text messaging program. The company reversed course just a day later, calling it a mistake and an "isolated incident." AT&T reportedly changed a service agreement that previously included language permitting the company to cancel accounts of Internet users who disparage the company. Several lawmakers, including Dorgan, earlier this year introduced so-called legislation promoting "Net neutrality," which is the principle that all Internet traffic be treated equally by carriers. Equal treatment of traffic is long-standing practice on the Internet. The legislation is a response to suggestions by phone companies that they would like to charge Web sites extra for preferential treatment of their traffic. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Britain-based Vodafone Group PLC.

Here come the "Thought Police"

*****SPECIAL NOTICE*****

AT&T, SPRINT AND OTHER SO CALLED PROVIDERS CHANGE OUR NUMBERS WITHOUT NOTICE, JUST REFER BACK HERE FOR THE NEW NUMBER IF THE RECORDING IS TOO FAST OR DOES NOT REPEAT.

REMEMBER BY DEFINITION THIS IS NOT A CHAT LINE BUT A TELECONFERENCE LINE, SINCE SOME ONE STARTS THE CONFERENCE BY PRESSING " * " AFTER THE ACCESS CODE.

IF THE "administrator" OF THE CALL HANGS UP THE CALL IS OVER FOR EVERYONE, that is not true of a chat line, which is always on.

THE NEW NUMBER IS (308)344-6459

Use this number with the access code you allready have

Wildfires In Southern California

All of us here at Free TeleCon hope that if you are affected by the evacuations from the fire that you are safe. This is a reminder to be prepared! You can use our service to maintain contact with groups of people, coordinate evacuations etc.

But most importantly, be safe.

Thank you to all of the firefighters on the front lines all over Southern California.

How 2 Guys' Iowa Connection Took Big TeleCom For A Ride

THE FOLLWING STORY IS REPRINTED FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
This is a story about the origins of the free conference service industry. Free TeleConferencing is not associated with Free Conference Call or David Erickson

RICEVILLE, Iowa -- Two-and-a-half years ago Ron Laudner was the anxious owner of a rural phone company serving this tiny town, where Main Street was emptying out as restaurants and other businesses disconnected their phones and moved to busier commercial districts.
More than 1,800 miles away, David Erickson was running a Web-based conference-calling business in Long Beach, Calif., shopping around for phone companies to be his partners.
In mid-summer 2005 this unlikely duo struck a deal. They routed millions of minutes of Mr. Erickson's conference calls through the switches of Mr. Laudner's Farmers Telephone of Riceville. To do it, they used outdated federal regulations to charge telecom companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. steep rates and collected huge profits at their expense. Together, the two made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Soon, Mr. Laudner cut other deals to generate even more traffic. At the peak, his little telephone company was facilitating conversations among everybody from Mary Kay Cosmetics employees to customers of Male Box, an "all male all gay" chat line.
"I'm not going to argue I didn't think it was amazing," Mr. Laudner says.
But the big phone companies had another term for it. "Verizon is not going to stand by while irresponsible companies use this traffic-pumping scheme to overcharge our company," says Tom Tauke, vice president of public affairs, policy and communications for Verizon.
The deal between Messrs. Laudner and Erickson illustrates how tumult in the telecom industry has given rise to opportunities -- and headaches -- as entrepreneurs exploit outdated regulation. Their arrangement, and deals like it, spawned lawsuits, blocked phone calls and triggered an investigation by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission into the high fees some rural carriers charged to the Bells. Late Tuesday, the FCC proposed rules that, if approved, are likely to prevent such deals in the future.
"We got smacked and smacked hard," Mr. Laudner says.
The partnerships benefited from the confluence of hot demand for conference calling and a proliferation of cheap long-distance plans. But the key was federal rules drafted during the 1983 break-up of Ma Bell, which required big telecom companies to pay hefty fees to small carriers to compensate for the high cost of providing service across miles of sparse farmland. Today, because of new technology, hundreds of callers can be linked at very little cost, no matter their location.
The Iowa plan worked like this: Mr. Erickson's freeconferencecall.com assigned a local Iowa telephone number to a group offering a conference call. When customers dialed the number, they went through their own carriers -- say, AT&T -- to be routed to Farmers Telephone in Iowa. Farmers Telephone then linked the callers to each other. Farmers charged the Bells steep rates to transmit their customers' calls and split the proceeds with freeconferencecall.com.
Mr. Erickson is a 42-year-old high-school graduate from Long Beach who gave up a childhood dream of becoming an architect to instead run construction companies that built machines for designing curbs and gutters. He dabbled in running insurance companies briefly before getting interested in telecom by going to a trade show with a friend and being wowed by a device that allows videoconferencing between PCs.
Mr. Erickson formed freeconferencecall.com in October 2001 working with a Boston phone company. He handled the marketing to attract customers to the service while the phone company provided the phone numbers and transmitted the calls. Mr. Erickson's business plan was to give away free conference calling and sell businesses other things, like a service that would allow users in multiple locations to work on spreadsheets simultaneously.
To read the whole story go to the Wall Street Journal

Free Tele Conferencing Brings Families & Friends Together

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Academic Coaching/Tutoring & Free TeleConferencing

From Wikipedia "Academic Coaching is an evolution of Mentoring applied to academics. Mentoring implies the student is an empty vessel into which knowledge is poured. Coaching involves a more collaborative approach, assuming the student is already in the "game" of learning. Coaches help students learn how they best learn and how to operate in an academic environment. Tutors help students learn the material in individual courses while coaches help students learn how to be successful in school. In college, that includes such topics as: study skills, time management, stress management, effective reading, note-taking, test-taking, and understanding how to use a syllabus. Academic Coaches meet with the student regularly throughout the semester, usually once a week. Coaches work with students in all kinds of situations, not just those who are struggling academically. Some highly motivated, high-achieving students will have a coach to improve their learning efficiency."

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The Wall Street Journal

A recent edition of the famed "Wall Street Journal" featured a cover story about the Free Conference Call Corporation of America.

Portions of the article will be posted here soon!

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