From the NY Times

Phone Companies See Their Future in Flat-Rate Plans

Fifteen years ago, Arthur C. Clarke in the science-fiction novel "2061: Odyssey Three" predicted a future as follows: "With the historic abolition of long-distance charges on 31 December 2000, every telephone call became a local one, and the human race greeted the new millennium by transforming itself into one huge, gossiping family."

That future may be at hand, only a few years behind schedule, as a result of the telephone industry's declining economic fortunes, increasing competition and recent technological advances. Starting with MCI, which introduced its Neighborhood plan in April 2002, most leading phone companies — AT&T, BellSouth, Qwest Communications, SBC Communications and Verizon — have rolled out programs that allow customers in some states to make unlimited local and national calls for one flat monthly price.

These unlimited-use plans offer callers the advantage of predictability and less time spent checking monthly bills. They commonly cost $50 to $60 a month with services like voice mail and caller ID bundled in, making the price only slightly higher than the $48 that American households typically spend on local and long-distance calling, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

The introduction of the flat-rate plan at MCI, formerly WorldCom, a company currently going through bankruptcy proceedings, is "exceeding expectations," according to a spokeswoman, Claire Hassett.

A spokesman for Verizon, Jim Smith, calls his company's program a "ripping success."

Have lit up the eyes of those who think they "get" the Internet, but there have been a lot of close calls too. The email campaign that shut down the UN mail servers when East Timor exploded into violence was an early sign of a global smart mob getting up a head of steam. With access to America's mainstream media becoming increasingly difficult for Liberal candidates, maybe the net is the charm THIS time. Check this.

When it comes to the Internet, no detail is too small for [Joe] Trippi. Some campaign managers devote their energies to working the elite press or courting union leaders or wooing donors. But Trippi seems to spend an inordinate amount of his time checking Meetup numbers, posting to liberal Blogs, sending text messages to supporters who have signed up for the Dean wireless network, and otherwise devising ways to use the Internet to build what Trippi envisions as "the largest grassroots organization in the history of this party." And his efforts might actually be paying off: While many predicted that Dean would fade away once the war was no longer a salient issue, there is little evidence that the former Vermont governor's supporters—originally drawn to Dean when he was forcefully speaking out against war in Iraq—are deserting him. In fact, the Internet might account for Dean's staying power.

For the Dean campaign, it all started with the Meetup phenomenon. Back in January, the campaign stumbled upon the Meetup website and noticed that 432 people were signed up for a Howard Dean Meetup group. "We didn't really know what it was," says Trippi. He watched from afar as Dean's Meetup numbers grew to more than 2,600 in February. In March, Dean showed up at a Meetup event in New York City. It was so crowded that hundreds of young supporters were pouring out onto the sidewalk waiting to get in. Soon the campaign began receiving mysterious donations with an extra cent added. They learned that the Meetup community intended to raise $1 million for Dean, and the extra cent was being used to identify the donations. It became known as the Meetup Million Dollar Challenge and has raised at least $300,000 for Dean so far (close to 10 percent of what Dean had raised overall, as of April). Almost overnight, Meetup had become the Dean campaign's most important organizing tool.

Other innovations—wireless communications, HowardDean.tv (a website that runs streaming video of Dean speeches and events), a network of rapid- response Bloggers—have followed, and Trippi is now doing more with the Internet than any other presidential campaign. Aides to some of the other 2004 Democratic candidates regard Trippi, who was born in Silicon Valley and has spent the last few years working for high-tech companies, as a bit of an eccentric who wastes precious campaign time e-mailing obscure Bloggers and hanging out with political oddballs at the monthly Dean Meetups. "Some of these Meetup events look like the bar scene from Star Wars," says an adviser to one Dean rival.

But Trippi believes others will one day understand the brilliance of his plan. Consider the Meetups: Once a month, thousands of self-organized Dean supporters across the country get together at coffee shops and bars to discuss their candidate and ways they can help his campaign. This ability to get people to meetings, Trippi says, bodes well for Dean in the Iowa caucuses. "What do you do in a caucus?" he asks. "You go to a meeting." And Trippi has plans beyond the caucuses and primaries. He speaks of using Meetup and other Web tools to build a million-person-strong network of small donors who could raise the cash needed to take on President Bush. "There's only one way you could ever get to a million people in this country," he says before pausing dramatically. "That's the Internet."