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∂AIL Senator Edward Kennedy↓Washington, D.C.∞

Dear Senator Kennedy:

	I read in %2Datamation%1 about the impending technology assessment
of computer communications.  I have long been  interested in this
field and its potential for improving human life.  Enclosed is a
paper delivered at the 1976 meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science.

	I have one special concern.  It is that the government may
inadvertently create unnecessary monopolies - either governmental or
private - by regulating who can offer what services.  My prime worry
concerns electronic mail.  As I show in my paper, a consumer should
use the same terminal for electronic mail as he uses for other interactive
computer services.  Moreover, a citizen will want to process his
electronic mail with computer programs.  For example, he will
find it convenient to be able to type Y or N or "next month" to his
bills as they are presented or to type A to a program that will then put
his address on a questionnaire or coupon he is filling out.
These mail processing services are not natural monopolies, and will
develop most rapidly under conditions of free competition.

	In fact, there is just one natural monopoly, and that is
the bare communication service from telephone jack to telephone
jack.  If the FCC decision can be made to stick so that any device
certified not to harm the telephone system can be connected to a
jack in the wall, the way will remain clear for all the services
envisioned in my paper except those requiring very high data transfer
rates.  When high data rate services are offered, they should also
be offered unmixed with information processing or storage except that
incidental to the pure transfer of information.

	%3The worst thing that can happen is a Postal Service monopoly
on Electronic Mail in which one rents terminals from the Postal Service
and can only use such auxiliary services as the Postal Service
chooses to provide%1.

	The ideal situation is one in which the owners of computers
that provide public service are distinct from the terminal sellers
and renters, distinct from the companies that provide useful programmed
services, and, if possible, distinct from the proprietors of data
bases who are distinct from the owners of the file computers
where the data bases reside.  None of these should be AT&T or the Postal Service.

	At Stanford, we have a project we call %2Dialnet%1 to develop
standard protocols that will permit any computer installation - whether
a large time-sharing system - or a hobbyist computer to provide mail
services for its users to any other system that implements the
protocols.  No equipment beyond telephone dialers and %2modems%1 is
required.
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	I would welcome the opportunity to testify before an appropriate
Congressional committee on the problem of developing electronic
communication services in such a way as will avoid monopoly.

.sgn