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Oregon judge rules AT&T must open cables
Cygnus v1 writes "This story on ZDNN gives some hope to those of us waiting for our local cable companies to get on the Internet-access bandwagon now or let third parties do the work. A Portland judge ruled that AT&T, who owns a local cable network, must allow third-party ISPs to do business over their network for a fee. Some argue that AT&T's rights are being violated, but I believe that since most of the cable infrastructure was installed in cooperation with local authorities they have some right to determine how the utility will be best able to serve the public. "
The editorial comment accompanying this piece is just wrong. The cable infrastructure was not installed "in cooperation" with the local government. It was installed 100% by the cable company. In fact the only role of the local government was to extort franchise fees and free cable access channels out of the cable company.
This "open access" provision is simply a sop to AOL, which is a multi-mega-billion dollar company that could easily afford to invest in its own infrastructure if it desired. Indeed, Microsoft has done this by investing billions in cable companies. AOL just wants a free ride. It want AT&T to spend billions to replace their old cable infrastructure with new high capacity data grade fiber and then sell access to them at wholesale prices. Of course if cable modems flop or are destroyed by DSL, AOL will lose nothing and AT&T will be left holding the bag. How fair is this? AOL wants the upside for themselves and the downside for AT&T.
People will say that phone companies are required to resell access to all comers, which is true. Cable is a vastly different animal for many reasons which I've outlined before but will be happy to do so again if people need a refresher.
BTW: I do not work for AT&T or any other cable company or ISP.
Most cable contracts are NOT exclusive these days. The franchise agreement only gives the cable company access to public rights of way. Many, many communities have granted competitive cable franchises. Here in Chicago Ameritech has many competitive franchises in the suburbs and a company called 21st Century is wiring most of the north lakefront with competitive cable.
The Oregon court has made a very smart, forward looking decision. It is absolutely critical that ISPs have access to both the Cable and DSL infrastructure. Bell and the rest of them dream of the day that they will *force* their cable and dsl subscribers to look at _their_ portal ... and _their_ ads. They will force everyone through _their_ proxy server. They will choose what sorts of email servers they will support. And which sort of IP packets they will let through.
It is important that people wake up and realize the value of competition. Persons using dial-up access now have CHOICE. If you don't like your ISP, you can choose one of the other 15 that service your area. This competition has resulted in improved service, as each ISP strives to add the bullet points that another ISP may currently have and to fix problems that may be causing customers to complain.
Local Loop (the physical medium that connects a home or business to an ISP) and the IP Services provided by the ISP are two different animals. Bell is using their monopoly on the one (high speed local loop) to gain a monopoly on the other (IP Services.)
Let's hope that other states follow the lead of Oregon.
I don't understand where the monopoly-defenders are coming from on this issue.
...), and this is exactly what cable should be like too -- at least the data portion.
For starters, the local government most certainly has the right to ask for this, since cable companies work for the interests of the municipality, which is why they were originally granted local monopolies. Especially in the absence of an FCC ruling, I'm glad to see that there are leading-edge communities trying to define the new era before it gets built at the pleasure of the corporations.
And make no mistake -- AT&T would love to have this monopoly. Not only would they own the only big pipe to your house, you would have no choice but to use their designated ISP/portal. You would be limited as a consumer to choosing what's already connected to your house -- or who's built into your neighborhood. This is the dream of the new "content monopolies" -- own the pipe, own the website, own the music, own the TV shows. No thanks!
I want the pipeline provider to be a utility, and the content providers to be in lively competition. This is exactly what phone service is like (yes, Aaron
Lots of people don't realize how incestuous the phone industry is, in secret. Go to telco A and say "I want a T1 to Fargo", and telco A says sure! But maybe telco A doesn't actually own a land line to Fargo. No problem -- they strike a wholesale deal with telco B, who does, and sell you that T1 just as if it were their own. Telcos are flexible like this only because they don't sell you content. It has nothing to do with infrastructure issues or who pays for what -- because the lease fees cover it in the end.
The only reason somebody like AT&T wants a monopoly on cable, when they don't on phones, is because they want to sell you their content. Or, put more correctly, they want to sell you to advertisers just like a TV station or other mass medium. The debate being sidetracked by equipment issues is good for them because it obscures the content angle. The content angle -- selling audiences -- is how they expect to win the lottery when the dust settles. Don't let them lock in audiences given them in a monopoly phase when they offer no benefit in return! Don't let them give you 500 cable channels -- that they all own (see, that's another thing they're trying to circumvent). Make 'em compete with the rest.
Of course, there is a Devil's Advocate position here. Cable monopolies are GOOD for DSL! If there's a monopoly like AT&T wants, then the reduced incentive to build a new cable plant will increase the incentive to build DSL access onto the existing phone network -- which is already regulatorily welcoming. (Since I side with DSL over cable, I like this, but that's just me.)
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
As a TCI@Home user I am quite pleased with the ruling. @Home has totally mismanaged things in my area. Packet losses of over 20% are not unusual. The mail server frequently crashes, and their tech support is totally unacceptable.
It takes over 3 weeks to get a response from a technical question sent via Email, and hold times on the phone are measured in hours.
What really makes me mad is the fact that @Home spends billions on companies like Excite, yet their internal infrastructure is totally inadequate. @Home is trying to become another AOL. I don't want AOL, I want a high speed Internet connection.
Not only that, but my rates have gone up while my bandwidth has been capped.
I have been an @Home user for 2 1/2 years, and during the last year the service has gone to hell. When I first joined, there were no hold times for tech support. The tech support people were sharp and knew what they were talking about. The performance was excellent. The uptime was excellent. They sent out email telling us ahead of time about downtime. They also emailed us our monthly billing info.
Today the only email I get from @Home is spam. I don't get a monthly bill from them (except on my credit card). Downtime is never preannounced, and tech support always responds by saying "Clear the cache in your browser" as if that will fix the 20% packet loss.
Oh, the packet loss is not caused by my connection to the cable company. The packet losses are due to the fact that @Home has inadequate bandwidth to the rest of the internet. The packets are always lost as soon as traffic leaves the 172.16.x.x routers.
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