By "native" RR, I mean nothing short of a replication of the same look and feel and interactive capabilities of Road Runner that I would experience if I were a Time Warner customer, and the service were furnished to me in its original state by the native service provider, in this case TWX. Only this time, through Comcast's (or any other ATHM partner's) facilities after having been ported through IP means. Of course, my hypothesis would also hold that the reverse of this hold true, as well. That is, if I were an ATHM customer and I moved to a TWX serving territory, then I would want my ATHM delivered to me by TWX.
We have something almost identical to this kind of application portability in the voice realm which is made possible, albeit, only to a limited extent of full feature portability, through a dial-around facility.
For example, 10-10xxx dialing. In the end, if we want to keep the alternate carrier, then we needn't dial around. We need simply to notify the primary local exchange provider that we want to "presubscribe" to the new carrier, and it pops up automatically. No need for dialing around at that stage.
It's also possible for one to maintain their seven digit directory numbers when they switch providers or move to another area, through local number portability (LNP) which is made possible through number translations and pointers in the telco databases. In the latter case, the Cable Modem analogue would be email address portability, also made possible through directory translations, as well. But it gets a bit more complicated for a number of reasons, where different domains are involved.
The difference between voice and cable, however, is the dissimilarity of the head end configurations and the cable modem options which may exist between ununited service providers. In the voice realm, the end point is usually a simple dumb tel set, which makes things easier to standardize on, and the line protocols are universally standard. Cable is insolvent, when it comes to those terms, since diversity and choice among the disparate MSOs are widespread. In other words, the telco industry is highly standardized, whereas the MSO world is not, despite the efforts of CableLabs and its partners.
Why would I want this? If I moved a few blocks or hamlets away, after years of RR service, I'd like to keep both my local desktop and the RR feature capabilities which I'd become accustomed to, and my email address, to boot. Not an unreasonable set of expectations in this age of wizardry. Can the cartel politics support this, though? That is the ultimate question.
By and large, I look to the telco space for a glimpse of the precedents which have been set in place. These are, for the most part, harbingers of things to come in both the cable and wireless worlds, either through regulation or through the need for service providers to differentiate themselves by presenting features which subscribers will demand. Can the otherwise arrogant monopoly players adjust to these new levels of user sensitivities? That is another nut that needs to be cracked, but I suspect that competition will help them along in this regard, too.
We're seeing it already. If not directly, then in ways which are strongly implied. |
