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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (4193)	6/15/1999 11:58:00 PM
From: lml	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Mike: And here's the latest ongoing at the local level -- at least from my view of the co-axial pipe: latimes.com Noteworthy is the article's commentary that the "open access" issue in Los Angeles has gone unnoticed, which has amazed me for some time.

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (4193)	6/16/1999 5:13:00 AM
From: Darren DeNunzio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

GTE Demonstrates Ease Of Cable Open Access to Multiple ISPs; Clearwater Trial Shows One-Time Investment of Less Than $1 Per Home Would Provide Consumer Choice. June 14, 1999 WASHINGTON, D.C. - GTE today announced that, using its cable network in Clearwater, Fla., it has clearly established that cable modem systems easily can be operated on an "open access" basis that allows customers to select the Internet service provider (ISP) of their choice. GTE conducted the Clearwater demonstration project over the past two months in conjunction with AOL, CompuServe Classic, as well as its own ISP, GTE.net. GTE Executive Vice President and General Counsel William P. Barr said: "Using the excuse that it's not technically feasible to give customers a choice of ISPs, cable companies have been forcing their customers to pay for and use the ISPs that they own, such as @Home and RoadRunner. GTE's demonstration pilot flatly discredits the claim that open access and consumer choice are technologically complicated and costly. Using a simple, off-the-shelf device, GTE has shown there is a low-cost solution that is feasible, flexible, scalable and easy to incorporate, giving consumers a real choice." GTE is uniquely positioned to demonstrate the feasibility of open access. While it owns cable systems in Florida and California, it is primarily an Internet company with a substantial ISP (GTE.net) and a large local phone company that already offers customers open access to the Internet. Describing results of the pilot program, Barr said, "This open access solution is inexpensive; it works on every kind of cable system capable of offering Internet access, and it involves no intrusion into the cable operator's management of its own network." George Vradenburg, AOL Senior Vice President for Global and Strategic Policy said: "GTE has proven that open access works as well on cable as it does on phone lines. Cable providers can easily and affordably open up their networks for high-speed Internet competition - and they should do so now. American consumers deserve nothing less. "Consumers don't want to pay for two ISPs to get the one they want - regardless of whether they are connecting over cable or telephone wires - and this demonstration proves once and for all that there is no 'technical' reason they should ever have to. We know now that when the cable industry says it 'can't' open its network, it really means it 'won't'," Vradenburg said. Consumers Are Denied a True Choice Today Today, Americans with high-speed cable modem service don't have a choice of Internet service providers. Cable companies have refused to open their networks as telephone companies have done. Rather, cable companies package cable modem service together with their affiliated ISP service. If consumers want to choose their own ISP (such as GTE.net or AOL), they are forced to pay twice, once to purchase the cable company's affiliated ISP and a second time for the ISP that they prefer. In addition, this doubling up causes a deterioration of service quality and allows the cable company to control what the ISP delivers to the customer. Such a scheme locks customers into the cable company's chosen ISP in order to get high-speed Internet access, and denies consumers effective choice. Multiple Solutions Demonstrated Working with several different vendors and "off-the-shelf" available equipment, GTE made changes to its cable modem platform that allows competing ISPs to have direct access to their customers. The technological solutions demonstrated by GTE work whether the cable system is analog or digital. They will work with all varieties of cable modems. "Our solution requires a single one-time investment of $60,000 to give 80,000 customers a choice of ISPs," said Rick Wilson, president of GTE's subsidiary Media Ventures. "That's less than a dollar a home passed. We took on this experiment because we know that our customers want choices. And GTE accomplished in less than two months, and with minimal expense, what the cable industry said couldn't be done. Today GTE demonstrated that consumers can have a choice of ISPs whether their cable company uses the technology of today, tomorrow or the next millennium," he added. On-Going Public Policy Debate Congress is currently weighing two bills that would require cable modem service providers to open up their networks to competing ISPs. In addition, numerous local communities and several states have entered the public policy debate despite cable industry threats of litigation. Just last week, a District Judge in Portland, Ore., ruled that cities have the authority to ensure open access and competition in cable-delivered Internet services. GTE strongly supports these efforts to ensure continued consumer choice of ISPs. "Today's announcement debunks one of the myths the cable companies have tried to create to block open access," said GTE General Counsel Barr. "The path is now clear for legislators and regulators to ensure that cable customers have the same choices that telephone customers already enjoy."

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (4193)	6/16/1999 10:21:00 AM
From: WTC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Mike, You wondered if you were missing something after examining Kennard's remarks on DSL, including his stated encouragement of rapid DSL deployment. I think you have to ascribe an agenda to the FCC Commissioners as much as the industry participants (even more so?) and perhaps consider the following from an ILEC perspective: < Local phone companies have complained that it's unfair for the FCC to make them open their lines to ISPs, while not requiring cable operators to do so. Kennard responded in Tuesday's speech. "Let's look at the facts," he said. "We put a proposal on the table for the Baby Bells to operate advanced services in a de-regulated environment. The Bells have been given the roadmap to their liberation. All they need is the courage to compete." > Well that is his view. The "facts" from the record show that the FCC "proposal on the table" was indeed an FCC construct. ILEC opposition was nearly universal (I believe Ameritech did not oppose the terms of the separate subsidiary alternative, but they were silent in the record as to their thinking on that.) Now he acts like he cannot understand why the dogs don't leap at the dogfood he is serving up. This is much more complex than what an FCC Commissioner pops into a soundbite prefaced by "Lets look at the facts." There is no consensus by the participants just what the relevant "facts" are -- but there is an FCC Report and Order that represents their politically distilled view of an appropriate course of action based on their culling of fact. The ILEC logic behind their opposition to significant aspects of the FCC NPRM proposal is well established in the record, but it is a stack of turgid prose that is no fun to pore through. So, I will mention just one highlight of ILEC commentary that the FCC failed to meaningfully address in the R&O. To wit: There is no problem with economic deployment of xDSL to business customers. Look at all the DLECs that are doing just that as fast as they can -- COVAD, Rhythms, Northpoint, HarvardNet, on, and on, and on. There is a significant common denominator with all of the active DLECs, though -- they have a totally business orientation, both with their service offerings, and especially, their pricing. (I use the industry convention that communications facilities to a residence to support work-at-home that is paid for by the employer is a business line. This is a big part of the current activity.) If the FCC is really serious about encouraging xDSL deployment to residential consumers at consumer rates (say, $29 to $49 per month), then the separate subsidiary business construct will fall short. It adds costs for the ILEC that will necessarily add to retail prices. This is leveling the table by cutting all the legs off altogether. For lower priced, best effort high speed interconnect connectivity, the ILECs, operating with integrated network facilities, provisioning capabilities, and ubiquitous (as much as xDSL allows!) service presence look like the best answer to provide residential consumers with a low-priced option to cable modem service. COVAD and Northpoint executives have stated in public that they have no plans to enter this market space, and it is a logical presumption that similarly operating companies with similar business plans would not, either. IMHO, the FCC seemed most interested in demonstrating their cleverness with the Sep Sub proposal as a tidy answer to many conflicting positions in the record. This seemed more important than in really producing a set of rules that could more fully support real competition where it already does and will exist -- the business segment, while creating a structure with some regulatory certainty that supports economical residential consumer deployment to a similar degree. The single minded emphasis is on competition, but no one at the FCC really figured out how competition would or could come to the consumer segment under the regulatory regime they set out. The certainty issues apply to what ILEC network components will be considered UNEs and which will be subject to wholesale pricing for resale. That clarification was deferred to another proceeding, based in part on the court decision that remanded the UNE definitions. So you decide, is it really true that: <To encourage competition in areas where high-speed Internet access is possible through cable modems, the FCC tried to make it easier for local phone companies to offer digital subscriber line, or DSL service, Kennard said. > I say there is more than one way to view this, and certainly more than one way to spin it. There is definately more than simply an issue of corporate "courage."