High-Speed Internet Access

* Re “‘New Economy’ Demands High-Speed Internet Access for All,” Ventura County Perspective, Dec. 17.

It takes money to make money. I don’t know who first said this, but if he were faced with the “problem” business hopefuls in Fillmore and Ojai are up against, he would probably sign up for any of the high-speed Internet services Pacific Bell offers and write the expenses off on his taxes until something less expensive came along.

Contrary to the complaints of some entrepreneurs and start-up trainers, high-speed access has been available for years. Pac Bell’s Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDNs) and direct access to T1 lines are at the ready for anyone who absolutely, positively had to have high-speed access. An offshoot of these access avenues and barely a year or two old, Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL) are not much more than a package deal Pac Bell subsidiary Advance Solutions Inc. (ASI) created to give more people access to the Internet at a lower price.

The devil always being in the details, though, ASI won’t bring the service on until it has enough subscribers lined up to cover the costs of the equipment. With all indicators pointing to losing money, ASI is not going to skip past profit-making centers just to make people in Fillmore or Ojai happy.

Not content to wait, some people are wasting a lot of energy by trying to build support for their quest for fast Internet access and downloading capabilities. For them, it’s nothing to suggest that Pac Bell should part with a little of its profit so they can boost theirs. But while their time is theirs to waste, dragging our elected officials into the fray is a whole different matter.

From a government standpoint, the Internet really doesn’t offer much. Home-based businesses are virtually impossible to impose license fees on and transactions over the Net are exempt from sales tax. Cities and the county aren’t going to recoup a penny for any efforts they put into chasing DSL. It’s a private-sector thing.

All the hubbub over DSL would make a casual observer think access to it is a constitutional right. And because some people can’t fathom spending money to make money, rumors run rampant that Darth Vader is alive and well at a phone company near us all. Pac Bell is only guilty of one thing: creating an advertising campaign for a high-speed data-transfer system that was too well received by the group it was meant to target.

BRUCE ROLAND

Ojai