People seem to forget that the market segment is high speed internet, not cable internet. Being worried about an ATHM monopoly is like being worried about an AAPL monopoly. Apple has a monopoly over Mac-Os computers, do they need to be forced to open their manufacturing facilites to produce Mac clones.
You focus on the threshold issue in this whole matter, E. Davies. I couldn't agree more. But the open access proponents would like the general public to think otherwise. The issue is not one of open access on the cable modem platform, but of open broadband access through various physical media.
Your analogy to AAPL's control over the Mac-Os is well placed, but is limited because an operating system is not necessarily viewed as a facility in the public domain that requires access by multiple users across publicly-granted ROWs. Nevertheless, your analogy is but one of many used to communicate to the less-informed the issue being debated.
One analogy I like to use is an e-commerce-like analogy of shopping in store for for food, clothing, whatever, & that the issue at stake is the ability to stroll down the aisles to shop for items of "content." AOL would like the public to think that it (AOL) is being denied from entering the "cable-modem" store to deliver "aisle" access to its subscribers. Nothing can be further from the truth. What AOL fails to highlight is the fact that there exist other "platform" stores, such as the "DSL" store, or the "fixed wireless" store (coming soon to your neighborhood) in which its subscriber can also shop for content, not to mention the good ole' "narrow-band" stores that AOL maintains on every corner.
I was somewhat surprised to hear former US Attorney General William Barr, now general counsel for GTE, use a similar analogy in GTE's streaming video last week when describing the open access issue -- on a cable-modem platform. He described the MSOs has constructing the driveways & roads in one's community & providing the only access to the neighborhood stores for consumers to do their shopping. How blatantly misleading for Mr. Barr to fail to recognize the DSL road system presently under construction that will deliver similar access to the same stores.
With the unpresented publicity this issue is now receiving, I think the more informed public will begin to realize the flaws in the position that AOL & other open-access proponents have taken.
First, create an environment to encourage the investment necessary to build the infrastructure. Allow the market to negotiate agreements for multiple access providers (as T as willingly expressed) & only regulate when it is clear that it is in the consumer's interest to do so. IMHO, it is clearly not in the consumer's interest to regulate the cable-modem platform as it is clearly still in its infancy. |
