Art manages the fallout from a mountain blaze and offers the FCC a reality check on rural markets. Remember back when all we had to do to coordinate one switch with another was voltage off and on to a relay? Then we switched to 2600kc tone, which sometimes pulsed through a sequence of other offices to extend dial trains through the network. Then Captain Krunch whistles from Cracker Jack Boxes and kids with perfect pitch figured out how to make free calls. And mini-computers arrived. Radio Shack TRS-80. CPM and DOS and Microsoft. Today processors online in my Beehive network are many. Each of 13 CDO's has five IP addresses. They are controlled with broadband Ethernet by fiber or satellite. And a dozen PCs on-line plus six laptops for technicians to maintain the system. Maybe 100 IP addresses. This recognition came when goofy things started to slow/shut us down. Too many addresses fighting when additional Ethernet terminals came to the party. Facing another hundred pouting IP addresses-Chuck is facing the reality of separating parts to their own server with resulting isolation of goofy calls. A hefty knowledge of Linux helps. And these guys are in big-time demand. HOMELAND SECURITY  Utah wannabe Cop Stan Locher is assigned to make sure no terrorists attend a Utah Security seminar this month. We telcos were invited. Sent a notice. Stan is hostile-who are you? I thought about FBI guys assigned to talk CALEA to us in Hawaii. One came on to our wives-hands on legs. FBI sensitivity training-and other incidents where Barney Fife rules. There is a sameness of reality as the Lochers defend. I don't think he wants my insight. FOREST FIRE  The Henry Mountains are six peaks topping 10,000 feet from the sand a mile lower-in southeast Utah. For nine years we've had a solar-powered microwave relay on Bulldog Ridge of Mt. Pennell. Last August, lightning got some brush burning at the base of the tree line. As it's Federal Land, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) camped out and watched. Mark Evens resides 18 miles south and gave us daily reports of the blaze line. BLM phoned us a couple of times and we in turn reported the temperature on top of the hill. Twice, we flew down to see-and hoped it was not going to be a problem. Two weeks later the fire was suppressed. Then it rained. A month later we tried to access the mountain for annual site inspection. What road? The BLM bulldozers had pulverized the road/trail. Over a mile of very steep cuts and gully crosses, rain runoff had washed it away. As I write, it's been a week since Russ and Kevin unloaded. One on a 4w back-hoe and the other a dozer with a 6-way blade. Burned trees felled along the way and six foot deep washouts. It appears the fire burned around the ridge but not the mostly shale top. FCC TRIENNIAL REVIEW  So far I've not seen a proposal to help the FCC in their quest to do away with access charges. Look – does anybody believe the Post Office, UPS or FedEx does not spend more to deliver stuff to rural areas than they do in the City? Well-does anyone believe the exact same conditions don't exist for rural telcos to deliver minutes to remote/rural areas? It's a given-right! And the costs are different for each company. One solution: Keep us on the dole. Or-let every company compute its revenue requirement and divide it by its terminating minutes. Use that to charge the respective IXC that give the end company the call. FCC must mandate IXCs may not cherry pick and-accept and deliver all traffic handed off to them. IXCs must then average their charges either nationally or by distance. Thus be truly competitive. In your dreams. Copyright 2003 by A. W. Brothers and Americas Network magazine. All rights reserved.   © Beehive Telephone Co.