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Home Open Access: What it means to you

Open Access: What it means to you

Should your cable TV company let you use any Internet service provider (ISP) you'd like? Or should you be forced to subscribe to the cable operator's hand-picked favorite?

It's an issue that has raged for the last two years as larger cable TV companies continue to swallow smaller ones, and upstarts like America Online buy out the Time Warner Cable's of the world.

Local governments and industry regulators fear that consolidation will put cable TV companies in the monopolist's driver seat. They'll jack up prices, kill off competition, and screw the consumer, so the thinking goes. On the flip side, forcing cable operators to let consumers pick their own ISP will ensure competition, which will keep prices steady and promote new services, according to open-the-network advocates.

What does it mean for you? Let's take a look.

Open Access: The View from Both Sides

Open access - or "forced access" if you're a cable operator - is a bureaucrat's term for letting consumers choose from among several ISPs (link to glossary) when they subscribe to a cable modem-based broadband service.

Say you sign up for AT&T's cable modem service. Today, @Home, in which AT&T owns a stake, is your only ISP choice. And if you sign up for Time Warner's broadband service, you're forced to accept Road Runner as your ISP. Any surprise that Time Warner owns a stake in Road Runner? How about the fact that @Home and Road Runner have exclusive contracts with their cable company owners through 2002?

The cable companies argue that they don't have the technological wherewithal to open their networks to outsiders. But the OpenNet Coalition -- a group of smaller ISPs and telephone companies - argues that those arrangements are anti-consumer.

Not surprisingly, those ISPs want a cut of the cable broadband action, as well. They've won some minor concessions in several cities. But the issue is now at the Federal Communications Commission, which is taking a wait-and-see stance while placing subtle pressure on cable TV companies to open up their networks.

So far, AT&T and Time Warner -- the nation's two largest cable companies that control 50% of the U.S.' cable TV households - have taken the hint.

	Open Access	Forced Access
The Players	ISPs like Juno and EarthLink, and telecom companies like MCI and Qwest	Cable companies like AT&T, Time Warner and Comcast
What They Say	Customers deserve a choice; ISP access to cable lines is technically feasible	Opening the network isn't technologically feasible
What They Really Mean	ISPs want access to the growing cable modem market, while telecom companies want cable companies to upgrade their plant	Major investment will be needed, while opening competition to other ISPs will reduce the value of @Home and Road Runner

How Open Access Might Impact Consumers

AT&T and Time Warner plan to test open access in several markets in late 2000. AT&T's trial in Boulder, Colo., will offer test bed customers 10 ISPs, including @Home, AOL, Yahoo!, Juno and MSN. Time Warner will offer Juno's service, and says it's talking to several more ISPs.

A cautionary note: Don't expect cable modem service prices to drop overnight if the open-access tests are deemed successes. Monthly charges should stay around $40 a month until there's more head-on broadband competition from fixed-wireless, satellite and telephone companies.

But you could very well see more features from the cable TV people, including more e-mail accounts with each cable modem subscription; more Web-storage capacity; better editorial and e-tailing content; stronger parental controls; and more IP addresses, which will let home and at-work users create more efficient internal broadband networks.