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Technology Stocks : InfoSpace (INSP): Where GNET went! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: red_dog who wrote (10396)	7/27/1999 11:39:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28311

I don't think it benefits T or @home to keep it closed as you mentioned. This is discussed at length (maybe even ad nauseum) in the ATHM thread, but since it's affects one of GNET's partners in some slight way, perhaps it's worth a new take on it here. Dedicated access benefits @home in a rather simple way: They get part of the subscriber fee from anyone who signs up for cable-modem service on one of their partner cable companies. T's position and that of the other cable companies is more complex. Most of the cable companies also have an ownership interest in the ISP that provides service on their systems, so they share in the benefit mentioned above. But that might not matter in the end. If the technology behind their systems allowed it, any of them might benefit from having multiple ISPs paying for transit on the cable lines. Just about everyone who looks at it believes that that will happen at some time in some way. Although there's significant debate on the issue, many who know how the cable guys set up their systems believe that they are not technically capable of shared access by multiple ISPs. It might be cheap to fix the problem. It might not be. Depends on who you ask. One thing seems certain however: The deployment of broadband cable access would be significantly slowed while the technical issues of multiple-ISP access are ironed out. Another significant issue is the locus of regulation. Until now, the internet has developed with remakably little regulation. ISPs are not regulated by the FCC or by the state commissions. Now, however, local governments have seen a chance to jump into the game and impose regulation on one part of the complex mesh of internet service providers. The FCC, for its part, decided it's best not to impose regulation. State commissions have mostly been silent as well. But thousands of local jurisdictions are being told that this is a chance for them to step in. Once the ISP issue is regulated on a local level, what else is open for regulation? Can the local government issue rules that give it some control over what appears on those cable modems? Why can't they force an ISP to filter out content that the locals deems objectionable?