Another fish story?

I hate to see summer go. Not so much because of the weather, although there's no question that summer in New England was great - when it wasn't 140 degrees.

No, I have always loved summer because it has always been a time when regular rules didn't apply.

In summer, Mom didn't make us wear our galoshes in the rain. In summer, Grandma said we could eat dinner on the living room floor in front of the TV instead of at the dinner table. And, in summer, Dad said we could stay up late and get up early. After all, summer was our time.

This summer, for the first time in a while, I've been reminded of all the fun and dizziness of this rules-on-their-head reality. I mean, look at the current phenomenon of "free PCs."

First off, the idea of free anything is a bit disorienting to me. My dad used to warn us against that kind of thing.

"You'll never get something for nothing," he used to say. "There's always a catch, even if you can't see it."

One day, he offered this warning while we were out on my uncle's fishing boat (a dinghy, really.) To make his point, he held up a shiny, flat flounder by the hook in its mouth and screamed, "No free lunch. Not for him. Not for you."

My dad's advice has been a staple of my business life for more than 25 years. But I'll admit that this summer's frenzied mating dance between PC makers and ISPs got me thinking. Even if nothing is exactly free, there has to be a deal in there for someone. Maybe me?

So I look, and what do I see? First, free PCs - not just no-name brands, but PCs from Dell and Gateway and Hewlett-Packard - if I am willing to sign up for a couple of years of Internet service for between $12 and $20 a month. That sounds as if it's worth looking into. But before I can even get all the pricing details, I hear that ISPs may be offering cheaper Internet service. All because Microsoft seems bound and determined to start a price war to help MSN compete with America Online.

OK, but those are just the Internet guys trying to kill each other off before the real market explodes, right?

Well, that's what I thought, too, until I noticed that a contagion seems to be spreading.

As the summer comes to a close, even the long-standing telcos and long-distance carriers are falling all over themselves to cut prices - and maybe lose money.

AT&T wants to make deals with smaller free PC firms such as Microworkz, even though ISP competitor EarthLink said it thinks the deal stinks.

Qwest Communications wants to slice margins out of one-stop plumbing with a plan to offer unlimited dial-up Internet service, plus four hours of long-distance for less than $25 a month. Now that Qwest is also the proud new owner of U S West, it's mind-boggling to consider the kind of deal you could get for Internet, long-distance and local service if you live in Colorado.

But a telco mogul doesn't have to have an unraveling Internet business plan to get sucked into the price war undertow.

MCI WorldCom's 5cents long-distance rate is starting to take its toll, so to speak, on other long-haul carriers. Analysts expect that the nickel rate will drag down the rates of other long-distance carriers, and cut state-to-state rates offered by many RBOCs.

Some Internet pioneers predict that voice will be free. John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco Systems, is one of the loudest proponents of this concept. But Chambers and others who share his vision always predict that the shortfall in voice revenue will be more than made up for in data and other digital traffic, such as audio and video streaming and leased applications.

As the summer wanes, the rules look a bit topsy-turvy to me. Everything looks cheaper: Voice, data and even the PC. That concept sounds good if you're a consumer or a business.

But if you're on the provisioning side of the business, you have to ponder an important question: For all the billions of dollars you're pouring into the online future, are the chances of getting them out with a profit becoming more murky?

In fact, there's something a bit fishy about it. Flounder, maybe?