America Online,
which owns just about everything, announced last week it is partnering with its
junior partner, Time Warner, to offer high-speed, cable modem Internet access in
San Diego County.
EarthLink, one of AOL's biggest
competitors, also announced last week it is partnering with Time Warner to offer
high-speed, cable modem Internet access in San Diego County.
Finally, Time Warner continues to offer its own Road Runner high-speed,
cable modem Internet access in San Diego County.
Huh?
It's tied to an issue known as "open access," or, in
the case of those who oppose it, "forced access."
What
you call it depends on which side of the fiber optic cables you're sitting on --
or own.
What it means is that San Diegans in the
geographic areas Time Warner serves (generally including areas north of I-8, up
to Del Mar, and west of I-15 through Rancho Bernardo, as well as Coronado) now
will have more choices for cable modem Internet service.
If you choose Time Warner, you'll pay $44.95 a month if you're also a
cable TV subscriber; $49.95 a month if you're not. You can have up to five
e-mail accounts and have personal Web pages with 5 megabytes of space.
Choose AOL and you'll pay $54.95 a month for the cable
modem and still have unlimited access to AOL's U.S. network of dial-up
connections. Or, you can pay $44.95 a month for the cable modem and then $2.95
an hour for an AOL dial-up connection if you want it.
AOL is also offering up to seven e-mail addresses and 12 megabytes of
Web space per screen name.
Choose EarthLink and you'll
pay $41.95 initially (regularly $49.95 a month), get eight e-mail accounts and
10 megabytes of personal Web space per e-mail account.
And there are other differences among the three services.
Beginnings
The open access
movement took hold in 1999, when a group called the OpenNET Coalition (made up
of mainly smaller Internet service providers) started lobbying to open cable
modem networks for use by ISPs that did not have their own cable modem networks
in place.
Then, in late 2000, the Federal Trade
Commission approved the merger of AOL and Time Warner with several conditions.
One of them was that AOL Time Warner had to offer third-party ISPs access to its
high-speed networks.
Access, of course, would not be
free. ISPs would pay Time Warner to use its pipes. Similar arrangements exist
between other dial-up ISPs and other cable companies.
EarthLink signed up early and often. San Diego is the 28th cable modem
market that EarthLink has joined. In others areas, such as Seattle and Boston,
EarthLink has partnered with AT&T Broadband.
Opponents of open access have called it downright
un-American.
The cable companies, they contend,
built the high-speed networks with private funds -- not public ones as with
phone lines -- and should have complete control of their networks.
Proponents argue something much more crucial is at stake:
freedom of information and freedom of choice.
Without
open access, "cable operators retain the legal right to censor messages, to
limit the size and nature of files which can be uploaded and downloaded, and to
favor content provided by their commercial 'partners' and 'preferred vendors,' "
argues the Media Access Project, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest law
firm.
The Center for Digital Democracy, also in
Washington, D.C., says that "an Internet without open access requirements would
hardly resemble the Internet as we know it today ... The power to discriminate
would be given to those who control the conduit -- the few gigantic service
providers that will remain. They would have gatekeeper status.
"Such an Internet would more closely resemble the limited choice of
cable television, rather than the varied options of the World Wide Web."
'Information service'
Last month,
the Federal Communications Commission voted to classify cable modem service as
an "information service," and not as a "cable service" or
"telecommunications service."
That partially means that
large companies such as AT&T Broadband, Cox Communications and
Comcast do not have to provide open access. So far, AOL Time
Warner remains operating under the condition for open access set by the FTC.
At the time of the FCC vote, commissioner Kathleen
Abernathy said that classifying cable modem service as an information service
"will promote our goal of fostering a 'minimal regulatory environment that
promotes investment and innovation in a competitive market.' "
But many do not agree with the FCC's decision.
Media Access Project filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals on
behalf of Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America, and the Center
for Digital Democracy, challenging the FCC's decision. So did EarthLink, Verizon
and Brand X Internet.
"The high-speed Internet has the
potential to support unprecedented innovation and diversity in commercial,
civic, nonprofit and personal communications," said Mark Wahl of the Center for
Digital Democracy.
"But in order to do so, the FCC must
ensure that these services are guided by the same principles of openness and
non-discrimination that promoted the development of the Internet in the first
place."
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