FCC seeks details on AOL, Time Warner open access
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Not fully satisfied with America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) and Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX - news) pledges of providing competing Internet services providers (ISPs) access to their cable systems, regulators have presented a raft of questions seeking clarification of those promises.
The issue of access has dogged the proposed marriage of the world's largest online company with the publishing and entertainment giant since they announced their merger plans last January.
At an Aug. 25 meeting, Federal Communications Commission officials presented company officials with a list of 20 questions, some multipart, about how the merger of the two companies would achieve that objective, according to a filing with the agency made available on Thursday.
AOL and Time Warner sought to head off the concern of regulators and lawmakers in February with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) pledging that it would allow rivals access to its cable access and Time Warner Chief Executive Officer Gerald Levin said he considered the document binding.
But the potential power of the two companies to exclude other Internet providers was a major theme of an FCC public meeting in July and the FCC wants specific assurances on how choice will be preserved.
The questions are part of the ``FCC saying show us how you are going to make this happen,'' said Dave Baker, vice president of law and policy at ISP EarthLink Inc. (NasdaqNM:ELNK - news).
``The MOU is the most concrete thing to that date put in writing but it's going take more than a two or three pager to make open access a reality,'' he said.
AOL and Time Warner have provided numerous documents and met with FCC officials to discuss the open access issue trying to explain the companies' position.
An AOL spokeswoman declined to comment for this story.
The FCC must determine whether the merger is in the public interest before allowing the transfer of Time Warner's broadcast licenses to AOL.
In the list of questions, the FCC asked the companies to detail how competing services would interconnect to the cable provider, how it would ensure competing data would not flow more slowly than AOL Time Warner data and how ISPs that are not affiliated with the merged company would have the ability to monitor their connections.
Additionally, the FCC asked how AOL Time Warner would manage capacity as more competing ISPs were added to the network, what restrictions would be placed on consumer bandwidth consumption and whether unaffiliated ISPs will be permitted to offer interactive services via the cable set top box.
The FCC list of questions also asked AOL and Time Warner how a customer would select an Internet services provider, will the consumer see a branded AOL Time Warner logo if not an AOL customer, as well as pricing and billing information.
Time Warner made a presentation at the Aug. 25 meeting about open access and its Columbus, Ohio, trial and the questions during the discussions tracked some of those presented to the company.
However, AOL and Time Warner were also told to respond in writing to the list of questions, according to a letter accompanying the filing with the FCC.
FCC Chairman William Kennard expressed his own scepticism about AOL and Time Warner's promises at a public forum last month demanding to know when open access would occur.
``It's my belief that until we actually see an open access platform in cable broadband implemented where people can actually see it and touch it and feel it and the ISP community can actually get confidence that they'll have access to it, that there will continue to be a lot of scepticism on this issue,'' he said.
One ISP, Juno Online Inc. (NasdaqNM:JWEB - news), reached one of the first third-party pacts to gain access to Time Warner's cable lines.
A big obstacle that has prevented from many of the agreements going forward is Time Warner's partnership in the Road Runner high speed data services provider which prevents the media giant from opening its cable lines to rivals until the end of 2001.
Time Warner has been working with its partners, including Microsoft Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp. among others, to restructure that agreement to shorten that timetable but until that has been resolved, Juno will have to sit on the sidelines. |
