I agree with your analysis if indeed the proposed consent decree imposes the conditions you suggest. To be honest, from the vague press releases I've seen, I'm not sure what conditions are being imposed on ATT here other than ATT will not be able to play with TWX-AOL wihtout permission. However, I have not seen any indication of any "eminent domain status", as you call it, being imposed, or that the terms of divestiture are being imposed, although you may have information that such indeed is the case (in which case disregard the rest of my post). I did see that the opennet coalition was complaining that this decree did not ensure "open access", whatever that means. The proposed decree should be published next week so we can look at it. However, even if the decree does not contain such conditions, remember this merger must also be apporved by the FCC and there are of course the pending court cases and local, state and federal legislative proposals regarding the imposition of common carrier conditions on the MSOs, so your "eminent domain status" may indeed be "manifest destiny". Oh, let's not forget the GTE antitrust suit.
I was also speculating(and I realize I shouldn't make quickie posts from work as I see they were far from clear)that even if the consent decrees do not go as far as you suggest, at least with respect to MediaOne, a competitive access situation might arise anyway and might arise prior to the expiration of the exclusives that are in place, exclusives which presently prevent ATHM access to MGU customers. This was all speculation, of course, all irrelevant, if the government is, or will be, imposing the terms.
Finally, I think one advantage T and ATHM would have had in embracing competitive access before this fight began (other than avoiding making so many enemies, shunning possible alliances, the wasting of resources not to mention the bad publicity) is they might have been able to set the terms of competitive access rather have the terms dicated to them, as is either being done or may be done some time soon. ATT, Comcast and AOL all have realized this and have moved lately to promise competitive access, albeit on their terms. Had they intially allowed access on their propsed terms, their opponants may have complained, but may not have been moved to fight to the degree they have when they were totally locked out. Now, it may be too late. If the consent decree does not already impose the conditions you suggest, I think it will be interesting to see if ATT succeeds in its version of "competitive access" or whether "eminant domain" or true "common carrier" status will be imposed.
For what its worth, I think the ATT access plan (from I can glean from company statements and the new contracts) appears to be something like this, ATT will offer its own high speed service (for which it controls the customer like they do now) on both TCI and MediaOne properties and ATT has committed to use ATHM exclusively on this service (per the new distribution agreement). However, other high speed services which are not ATT services (i.e.,AOL-RR) will be offered on the cable lines, provided they make an appropriate deal with ATT. For these services there will be no requirement to use ATHM (though, Bell had suggested that other isps may want to purchase ATHM connectivity anyway). Not sure the government will allow this.
Got to run, have a nice weekend. |
