Open systems are good news for CUBE.....
Markey Breezes Into Broadband Brouhaha
07 Jul 1999, 11:34 AM CST
By Robert MacMillan, Newsbytes.
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A.,
Cable systems offering broadband data
access would be forced to open their
infrastructure to competing providers under
a new piece of legislation sponsored by Rep. Edward
Markey, D-Mass.
The Massachusetts Democrat, making a few whistle stops
along the West Coast during the congressional July 4th
recess, said he would introduce a House Concurrent
Resolution sometime next week that would "express the
sense of Congress that the Federal Communications
Commission should treat (cable) broadband services... as
telecommunications services..."
The legislation, not strictly a bill, will compete with other
House measures designed to encourage the rollout of
high-speed broadband data access as mandated by Section
706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Two teams of Congressmen, Reps. Robert Goodlatte, R-Va.,
and Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Reps. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin,
R-La., and John Dingell, D-Mich., have introduced measures
of their own.
The Goodlatte-Boucher bill would require cable companies to
provide open access to competing Internet service providers,
and it would also allow incumbent local exchange carriers
(ILECs - the baby Bells and GTE Corp.) to provide long
distance high-speed data services, something they now may
not do until they satisfy the market-opening requirements of
the Telecom Act.
The Dingell-Tauzin bill would allow the cable companies to
keep their infrastructures closed to competing ISPs, but
follows the Goodlatte- Boucher model for allowing ILECs to
provide long distance/inter-LATA (local access transport
area) services.
Long distance providers, including AT&T Corp., now a
substantial cable infrastructure operator, oppose this plan
because they say that even though they get to keep the
fence around their cable systems, the ILECs still must
satisfy the Telecom Act's Section 271 market- opening
requirements before they can offer any type of long distance
service.
AT&T appears in an especially interesting position because
it is trying to keep the ILECs from entering any kind of long
distance market until AT&T can compete as a local
exchange provider, but at the same time it does not want to
allow competition on its own cable network, run by new
subsidiary Tele-Communications Inc.
Opponents to AT&T and Time-Warner Inc., which do not
want to open their cable pipes, say that competing ISPs
face a competitive disadvantage when they cannot use the
cable infrastructures.
They also complain that cable customers who want
high-speed cable access must use the service offered by
their cable provider as a result of the closed system, and if
they want to use their own ISP on the cable lines, they first
must pay for the cable provider's own service and then pay
for their own ISP on top of that.
The Goodlatte-Boucher, Dingell-Tauzin and Markey
measures all are highlighted on the local level by continuing
local battles over the transfer of TCI's local franchises on the
West Coast to AT&T.
The OpenNET Coalition, including members such as Qwest
Communications International Inc., US West Inc., and
America Online Inc., are trying to foment popular support to
force AT&T, Time-Warner and other cable operators to open
up. Meanwhile, AT&T is facing a Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals battle with Portland, Ore., and adjacent Multnomah
County, after the two jurisdictions said AT&T must offer open
access in exchange for franchise transfer approval.
Seattle and King County in Washington, as well as Denver,
Colo., have already have approved the transfers, while a San
Francisco Board of Supervisors vote has been delayed until
as late as next week.
MORE TO COME
Reported by Newsbytes.com, newsbytes.com .
11:34 CST |
