BellSouth May Bill Net Providers

In a split with fellow Baby Bells, BellSouth Corp. is threatening to charge Internet service providers and other specialized carriers long-distance access fees for using the Internet to carry long-distance telephone voice traffic.

The regional phone company has notified six companies that it will begin metering their Internet traffic and charging them the access fees if they continue to offer Internet voice telephony.

BellSouth’s new policy has not been embraced by other major local telephone companies. Indeed, Bell Atlantic Corp. this week announced an agreement to connect Internet phone calls carried by ITXC Corp., one of the leading wholesalers of Internet telephone service.

It is unclear how BellSouth will determine which calls placed to an Internet service provider are Internet voice telephony calls rather than ordinary calls transmitting e-mail and other data traffic. But the company vows to be vigilant.

“We are going after people who are mass-marketing Internet telephony through special dial-in numbers,” said BellSouth spokesman Bill McCloskey. If they don’t agree to the company’s new policy, “they will be reclassified as long-distance providers” and all of their Internet traffic will be billed accordingly, McCloskey said.