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	A major threat to reasonable rates for long hold times is
likely to come from populist attacks on terminal use as a luxury
of the rich.  Some utilities commissioner building a record
of defending the public interest preparatory to seeking higher office
will denounce the selfish luxury of
wealthy terminal users and will soak them in order to keep
residential voice rates down.  The response to arguments that terminals
will eventually be as ubiquitous as color TV's will be the classical,
"What has posterity ever done for me?".  Such populist reasoning
is as likely a threat as Lauren Weinstein's fear of the telephone
companies' simple desire for profits.

	There is likely to be a strong push for more phone company
income, because the nominal return on investment
of any regulated capital intensive business
is illusory in a time of high inflation.  He who sold beans ten years ago
and bought telephone stock, sold the stock this year and bought
more beans with proceeds and the dividends probably has fewer beans
than when he started even though he has a nominal profit on which
he gets to pay tax.  Technology improvements seem to have kept the
heads of the telephone companies above water, even though electric
many utility bonds have gone down from AAA to B, and they can't sell
stock to finance new plants.  There is probably strong pressure
in the phone companies
to make money in any possible way, and the terminal users may get zapped.

	In any case, it seems very unlikely that terminal users
will be able to get eight hour local calls for the same price as
five minutes for very much longer.  The danger is that they will
be charged more than marginal costs in order to avoid a increases
in residential rates.  The defense must be reasonable, and it must
emphasize the need to encourage the future mass use of terminals.