However, I have not seen any indication of any "eminent domain status", as you call it, being imposed,
Of course not. It is the decree that has opened the door for the invocation of eminent domain. "Eminent domain" won't be invoked until there is lawsuit by either Att or TWX due to discrimination under restraint of trade. Someone is benefiting due to law that arbitrarily discriminates against others doing the same.
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).
Nope. Just reasoning extempore.
I did see that the opennet coalition was complaining that this decree did not ensure "open access", whatever that means.
The decree only prevented aggregation, but it did open the door to an evolution into competitive access.
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".
You can count on it. Indeed, the situation will turn into such a mess that it will be subsumed under national government eminent domain. This is what happened during the early days of railroad. If it isn't, the people won't get BB.
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's ok. It is in error that we discover the answer. Error provides the opportunity to go beyond perfunctory.
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,
This is what the market, the reality, is doing anyway. First survival, then law.
exclusives which presently prevent ATHM access to MGU customers.
It is my understanding that UMG customers will have the right to select @Home, because that is Att's preferred carriage. Isn't it this concept which busts exclusivity and opens up competitive access? Do you see what I mean? Att will get some subs under UMG, but they will also have to open access to other ISPs. That's equally true for TWX-AOL. Att doesn't like this, but TWX-AOL will like it far less. At least Att has resigned themselves to the inevitable and are planning accordingly. Not so TWX. Do you now see from where "lawsuit by either Att or TWX due to discrimination under restraint of trade" comes? There is no way that AOL wants to merge and open, n'est-ce pas?
This was all speculation, of course, all irrelevant, if the government is, or will be, imposing the terms.
Government will have to impose a pseudo free market structure due to the chaos created by the above implications. I say "pseudo" because the physical reality of the networks won't yet support pure free market. In ten years with the inevitable advent of FTTH, pseudo goes to pure.
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.
This is very insightful thing to say, but history has shown that the best progress and the best outcome comes from conflict rather than cooperation. When you cooperate you pursue someone else's interest to some extent, but you can't know that, so you introduce inefficient artificialities which over time evolve into a quagmire. This is the history of CATV. Everyone pursued free market and fairness with the result that the exact opposite becomes the norm.
ATT, Comcast and AOL all have realized this and have moved lately to promise competitive access, albeit on their terms.
Thank you. You're giving my above scenario teeth since "on their own terms" will not be the terms acceptable to the opponents, say, TWX. There must be uniformity in terms. That's the purview of national government in this case and it will be invoked via eminent domain.
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,
It doesn't. That will come when the decree spawns the above mentioned challenge.
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.
"Eminent domain" and "common carrier" refer to different domains. Common carrier status refers the actions between and eminent domain refers to actions over. Between can be exclusive but over can't. Common carrier can't be applied to BB:Internet, only to BB:telephony because of inheritance. BB:Internet is a market separate and distinct. It may be the case that Congress will invent a common carrier status for BB:Internet, but if eminent domain is invoked, that won't be necessary.
...ATT access plan...appears to be something like this, ATT will offer its own high speed service...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).
Thank you. More support.
Not sure the government will allow this
The FCC may squawk, but they have the BOC closed market issue that keeps them from pushing interference too much, for it will be the cable through which telephone will come sooner or later. |
