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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: HR 1542
Also sprach Steve Sobol >I felt compelled to answer this. You work for a company operating in >another industry that is doing much the same thing! I don't see >Adelphia's cable Internet services in Cleveland being opened to other >ISPs. (Yes, I know that Adelphia just entered the market about a year >ago, and yes, I know that the cablemodem rollout is far from complete.) >Time Warner isn't, either. I heard about them doing it in about a dozen >test markets (Central Ohio being one of them) but haven't heard >anything since then. To the south of my home, RoadRunner is *huge* in >Akron, Canton and Columbus. But it's the same old song and dance... I've said many times, in many fora... I'll be the first to stand up for Open Access on cable plants. Indeed, we (IgLou) were quite active in trying to get the city of Louisville Board of Alderman to at least *act* like they have a backbone (even though natives know they don't have one at all) and try to enforce Open Access on TKR^WIntermedia^WInsight (I proly missed quite a few there, and I know there were some that predated TKR), alas, the city decided that they didn't real care about locally owned and operated businesses, doing the right thing, or even showing some semblance of intelligence regarding the cable franchise. Consequently, they didn't even *attempt* to push the Open Access issue, and settled for a $5 credit to customers for *years* of illegally including a property tax fee on cable bills. Oh man...and my wife is watching the news downstairs and just informed me that the Louisville Board of Alderman managed to make themselves look like total idiots yet again. For those of you (I would assume most) that aren't familiar with the situation here. After Derby (I assume most of you realize that the Kentucky Derby was today), traditionally, there has been a massive cruising problem on Broadway from downtown Louisville out to the west end (predominantly african american area of town). So the Board decided to hold hip-hop concerts to try to draw people to the concerts to avoid the cruising. Apparently, they needed ot have 23,000 people come to the concerts between the two nights to break even...they ended up with something like 2800 people there between the two nights. So what does this have to do with nanog? Well...ok...its a stretch, but cablecos are "regulated" (if you can call it that) by local franchises almost exclusively. At least in the state of KY, the PSC does *NO* regulation over cablecos. The FCC only does very basic regulation (primarily content regulation as I understand it). And the local franchises are "regulated" by people like the Board of Alderman here in Louisville that don't have a *clue* about what's going on with stuff like this, or about what the significance is. Even worse, though, is that they don't *care*, even when its pointed out to them! This makes the Open Access fight for cable very hard to nigh on impossible. The good news, however, is that if we fight the fight to get real openness on telco networks (not the crap that the RBOCs like BellSouth are trying to pull right now), then the cable networks will be moot before too long. Look at the history of computing and computer networking...the more open solution wins, almost without fail. Open up the telco networks, and the cable networks will loose out and will cease to be relevent. The RBOCs seem to think, however, that two wrongs make a right. The prevailing thought being something like, "Sure, openness is good, but if the cablecos aren't going to be open, then its bad for us to be open." Uh...huh? So, in summary, I agree with you that cable networks should be open as well. The bad news is that its a fight that we (independent ISPs) won't win because we don't have legal and regulatory leverage. The good news is that we *can* win the fight for real open access on telco networks if we organize and fight. The better news is that winning the fight for real open access on telcos makes the fight for open access on cablecos moot. >And I don't understand why every single ISP (regardless of size) isn't >doing more to stand up for open access. Ultimately, it will become an >issue of survival. Check out http://war.iglou.com Join or start your state ISP Association or one of the national ones like The American ISP Association (http://www.aispa.org). -- Jeff McAdams Email: [email protected] Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456
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