SAN JOSE, California -- In 1984, long distance telephone service in the United States was opened to competition, following decades of AT&T control of the nation's voice networks.
Now, coalitions of Internet service providers and consumer advocates are trying to warn the nation's ISP industry that a similar monopolistic monster threatens their ability to compete.
"Open Access is historically an enabling policy that's fostered competition and allowed Internet service choice so far," said Michael Silverton, director of the new Open Access Alliance of the Bay Area.
The alliance held a press conference Tuesday outside the Internet Service Providers Convention in downtown San Jose. As providers gathered inside to bone up on the finer details of running an ISP, the group announced its intentions to go recruit ISPs to its cause.
Silverton feared that AT&T's new ownership of cable providers around the country will limit choice as consumers and their service providers transition to next-generation high-speed Internet access.
"There's no choice for you," he said of the cable market, which has begun to provide high-speed Internet in some markets. "They say here's a bunch of bandwidth, and you have no choice. Take it or leave it."
As Internet access, now provided mainly via modems and phone lines, starts to speed in through faster cable TV wires snaking into consumers living rooms, the cable infrastructure will become critical to next-generation access service for high-speed Internet. Cable and the high-speed phone-line service of digital subscriber line, or DSL, are seen as the main avenues to faster consumer Net access. Local phone lines are already accessed by multiple providers in some regions of the country to provide DSL service.
The Open Access Alliance is a group of Internet Service Providers, consumers, and community leaders. Initial members include a range of members, from the Santa Clara County Alliance of Black Educators and the Center for Accessible Technology to the Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Alameda County Taxpayers Association. The group counts about 30 Internet service providers among its members.
In May, AT&T made a US$58 billion bid to acquire fourth-largest cable TV provider MediaOne. That came just weeks after its acquisition of TCI, the second-largest provider. It also has a partnership with cable provider Time-Warner. The Open Access Alliance said the company's cable deals total $130 billion, buying the company too much control over a single piece of infrastructure -- 60 percent of nation's cable lines.
Before a press conference crowd of approximately 30 -- including press and Alliance staff -- the Open Access Alliance formed Tuesday in hopes that it can affect the outcome of city governments' decisions in the San Francisco Bay Area regarding the open access issue. It is those municipal government bodies that decide whether mandate open access as they renew the licenses of local cable providers.
Cities and counties throughout the nation have been considering the adoption of many such policies, some in favor of cable companies like MediaOne, some not. Cambridge, Massachusetts was the latest American city to require open access as part of its license transfer from MediaOne to AT&T. City manager Robert Healy cited the freedom of consumers to choose high-speed Net access providers.
The Federal Communications Commission is taking a wait-and-see approach on the issue, promising to monitor developments.
Told of the new Bay Area alliance, Matt Wolfrom, spokesperson for Redwood City, California-based -- and AT&T-owned -- cable Internet access provider ExciteAtHome, wondered what the need was for such an alliance.
"I don't understand why it needs to be. Who's being hurt here?" Wolfrom said. Consumers have noncable access alternatives that already provide plenty of choice, such as high-speed data over phone lines and, eventually, satellite access. Introducing possible regulations into the equation only means costs will go up and deployment of services will go down, Wolfrom said.
Furthermore, he said no one should assume cable providers won't be contracting to let other companies use their network. "It's not about doing deals, it's about not having the government mandate what the deals are going to be," Wolfrom said.
In some cases when supervisors or city councils rule that cable franchises must open their networks to competitors, AT&T has sued. Its argument is that it owns the infrastructure in question and it alone should determine how and by who it is used.
The company has threatened to cease cable upgrades and investments intended to support high-speed cable access to the Net on the premise that open access would destroy its economic incentive to do so.
The Open Access Alliance plans to work closely with another coalition of approximately 1,000 providers on a national basis, the OpenNET Coalition.
But the success of both organizations and their local counterparts around the country depends on gathering the momentum of ISPs. And right now, ISPs are too concerned with making their existing services to consumers and businesses work to think much about this open access thing.
Inside the convention Tuesday afternoon, a session was held for a small audience of providers on the issue of open access.
Jim Pickrell of an ISP serving southern California was in San Jose for the event simply because he wants to recruit his ISP counterparts, whom he fears cannot attend to such a long-range issue. Indeed, few were present for the announcement of the new alliance Tuesday.
"We want to start signing people up," Pickrell said.
To help do so, he attended a session along with a small group of providers that ISPCON staged on the issue and warned his colleagues at the panel that it's really the small companies that are going to get hurt by cable provider domination of the access market. He encouraged them to support organizations like his and OpenNET Coalition.
Panelist Donna Lampert, who represents ISPs large and small with her Washington, DC-based law firm, said that the resolution of Portland Oregon's decision to mandate open access will advance the issue to its next step. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will resolve AT&T's suit with Portland, which required the company to open its cable network there in 1998.
"I do think the resolution in Portland's court will get us one step closer," she said.
But Lampert thinks that ultimately a more global solution will be necessary -- in the form of legislation -- but expects the issue won't be resolved at the federal level for another two years.
Session attendee Don Howser, chief operating office of Columbia, Missouri ISP Socket Internet Services said he plans to get more involved with the issue, which he has already been following closely. He wants to offer cable modem access in his service area, and thinks ultimately only legislation will have the power to force the likes of AT&T into compliance.
To achieve federal action on the issue, ISPs are going to have to band together with larger telcos to convince Congress that the issue deserves their attention, Howser said.
"ISPs have to take their eyes off their 56-Kbps concerns of the moment and look forward. As individual ISPs, we don't have enough of a long-term strategy."
