|
|
|
Media
Center > Press Releases
For Immediate Release January 10,
2001 Contact: David Beckwith, 202/775-3629
|
|
NCTA COMMENTS URGE FCC TO CONTINUE
The government should continue with its
policy of "vigilant restraint" and not propose rules to impose
a forced access regime on cable modem service, the National
Cable Television Association said today in reply comments
filed with the Federal Communications Commission as part of
the agency's Notice of Inquiry on high-speed access to the
Internet.
NCTA's comments pointed out that the market
for Internet access service is increasingly competitive, and
cable operators and Internet Service Providers ("ISPs") are
already entering into commercially reasonable agreements that
will provide consumers with a choice of ISPs. As the comments
observed, "[t]he competitive market will prevent any
anticompetitive behavior that proponents of forced access
speculate might occur."
NCTA emphasized that the record
in the FCC's proceeding clearly demonstrates that, in both
large and small markets, "competition between cable, DSL,
fixed wireless, and satellite providers of high-speed Internet
services is increasing." NCTA underscored the point that
virtually all of cable's competitors are able to offer a
bundle of services, and "[i]t is now more apparent than ever
that consumers will face a larger and larger supermarket of
competitive alternatives in their communities."
The
NCTA comments also explain that the FTC consent decree
authorizing the AOL/Time Warner merger underscores "how very
inappropriate forced access requirements are for other cable
operators." In so doing, the comments emphasize that "[n]o
other cable operator possesses the assets that prompted the
FTC to impose forced access conditions on AOL/Time Warner,
[and] [n]o other cable operator serves more than a small
fraction of the embedded Internet customer base of AOL."
The NCTA filing also refutes the charge that cable
operators might attempt to control access to Internet content
through caching or other means. "Consumers expect and demand
unhampered access to the Internet content of their choice, and
would not tolerate the types of behavior envisioned by
proponents of forced access," the NCTA submission states. "A
cable operator that attempted to control subscribers' use of
the Internet and eliminate unaffiliated content providers'
ability to reach consumers by steering subscribers to
affiliated content through caching or any other means would
fail to gain new customers and quickly lose its existing
customers to its competitors." In the real world, NCTA noted,
caching is not discretionary. "Content is cached automatically
based on the frequency of customer visits, not affiliation
with the cable operator," NCTA said.
The NCTA comments
also addressed the potential problems that would result if
government-mandated access were extended to interactive
television (ITV). "If anything, the case for requiring access
to a cable operator's ITV platform is even less supportable
than mandatory access for ISPs," NCTA noted. In the same vein,
NCTA observed that "ITV is at an even earlier developmental
stage than high-speed Internet access. Indeed, most cable
operators have not even determined how, if at all, they will
use or offer ITV. ITV is not yet available in most places, and
the very concept of 'ITV' itself is not remotely subject to a
uniform definition at this point in its development." NCTA
concluded that regulatory intervention is justified only where
there is an identifiable failure in the marketplace, and
"imposition of burdensome regulations in advance of any
evidence that they are warranted will only serve to stifle the
development of this promising service."
NCTA also
rejected calls for "regulatory parity" advanced by cable's
local telephone company competitors. Such suggestions "ignore
the factors that give rise to the different regulatory
treatment accorded cable operators and incumbent telephone
companies," NCTA notes, concluding that the FCC's current
policy of "vigilant restraint" is the appropriate regulatory
stance towards cable modem service.
|
[archives] |
| |