Internet providers seek cable access

WASHINGTON - Fearful that a new generation of high-speed cable and wireless networks will relegate them to the towpath of the information highway, America Online Inc. and other Internet service providers are lobbying government and industry officials for access to those networks.

In papers filed last week with the Federal Communications Commission and in talks with AT&T Corp. and several cable operators, Internet service providers have voiced strong objections to industry efforts to restrict the way cable customers access the Internet over high-speed cable lines.

"There is a serious danger that ... (cable) owners will exercise their control over local broad-band lines to restrict competition ... and completely deny use to independent ISPs," MindSpring Enterprises Inc. Chair Charles Brewer wrote in papers filed with the FCC.

"We think broad-band networks should provide open access just like" current networks, said AOL General Counsel George Vradenburg III.

Although only about 300,000 households now access the Internet via cable TV lines - which enter more than two-thirds of American homes - cable is likely to become the dominant route for high-speed access by consumers because it is less expensive and more widely available than high-speed telephone lines, which can reach customers located within only 15,000 feet or so of a central telephone office.

Satellite and wireless communications providers are waiting to jump on the Internet bandwagon following an FCC decision Thursday allowing them to offer high-speed Internet access.

And although federal law requires phone companies to allow their customers to dial up any ISP they choose, cable and wireless operators who aren't providing phone service over their high speed networks are under no such obligation.

A recently released FCC paper examining high-speed cable Internet access concluded that the agency could require some cable operators to open their networks to other ISPs - a position advanced by MindSpring, AOL and other Internet providers.

But most experts believe the FCC does not have the legal authority to require cable operators to open their networks. Even if the agency did have such authority, they say, it is difficult if not impossible to configure a cable network to provide transport for multiple ISPs.

"The FCC has no authority in this area; they have to go to Congress to act," said James Burger, a Washington technology lawyer, who was formerly Apple Computer Inc.'s senior law director.

"The cable network is a shared bandwidth system that is designed for broadcast transmission," added Jerry Bennington, senior vice president of Internet technology at Cable Labs, the Louisville, Colo.-based research and development arm of the cable industry.

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