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To: Vendit™ who wrote (29410)	8/13/1999 8:10:00 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

AOL, Excite Expected to Debate 'Open Access' at N.Y. Conference Bloomberg News August 13, 1999, 4:11 p.m. PT AOL, Excite Expected to Debate 'Open Access' at N.Y. Conference New York, Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Rivals America Online Inc. and Excite At Home Corp. each will take center stage at a conference next week where they're expected to debate whether ''open access'' to high-speed cable-TV lines is a good idea. Both companies will have a chance to make their case at Paul Kagan Associates' Digital Household Summit in New York. Keynote speeches will be given by AOL President Robert Pittman and Excite At Home Chief Executive Thomas Jermoluk. The conference's theme, ''How Media Will Change at the Millennium,'' is largely dependent on the ultimate reaction of the U.S. government and marketplace to the issue of open access. One side, which includes AOL and some local communities, argues that AT&T Corp. and other cable operators should be forced to share their lines with Internet service providers such as AOL. Others contend that companies should work out the access issue among themselves. ''There's a lot of uncertainty on this,'' said Janco Partners Inc. cable analyst Theodore Henderson, who's also speaking at the conference. ''At the beginning of this year, we downgraded the broadband cable operators in part because we believed open access would be a regulatory cloud that would hang over the group for the whole year.'' AOL, the No. 1 online service with more than 19 million members, is fighting for room on the cable-TV systems of AT&T, soon to be the biggest cable U.S. company. That poses a threat to Excite At Home, which has an exclusive agreement to sell its Internet service over AT&T's cable systems until 2002. AT&T owns 26 percent of Excite At Home and has a 58 percent voting stake in it. Broadband Products The Kagan conference, which runs from Tuesday to Thursday, also will discuss the types of products and services that will be available on broadband networks, such as interactive television, telephone service, videos and music on demand, and electronic commerce through the TV. ''The whole idea of the conference is to move beyond just computer-based Internet access and ask, 'What's the next step?''' said Douglas Shapiro, analyst at Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown. The gathering also follows an important decision by the Federal Communications Commission to allow a single company or person to own two TV stations in large markets. There will be discussions on how this new rule may affect TV broadcasters' shift to digital TV from traditional analog technology. Digital TV will provide a sharper, wider picture as well as capacity for many more channels than currently available. The conference will look at whether the FCC ruling will ''change broadcasters' digital strategies and what they end up doing with the extra bandwidth,'' said Larry Gerbrandt, an analyst at Kagan. New Video Recorders A third big issue will be the implications of so-called personal video recorders, new machines from companies such as TiVo Inc. and Replay Networks Inc. that allow users to store programs and customize a lineup of their favorite shows. They also let users replay or pause during live programs as well as skip through commercials. One panel, which will include executives from TiVo and Replay, will discuss how big a threat these new devices are to broadcast and cable networks. The presentation will come a week after five of the world's largest media companies threatened to sue TiVo and Replay unless they agree to obtain licenses to use network programming. ''The copyright owners are rattling their sabers,'' said Gerbrandt. Kagan prides itself on relatively small conferences that include heavyweights from companies and the investment community. The ''Digital Household'' conference was co-founded by Gerbrandt in 1997 to explore how digital technologies will transform consumer products and everyday households. ''We've got a number of industries that are facing pressure points, and we've got a ringside seat,'' Gerbrandt said.