IP: AOL Ends Lobbying for Open Access

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

[ Guess it depends on which side you are on djf]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42393-2000Feb11.html

By Peter S. Goodman and Craig Timberg

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, February 12, 2000; Page A1

For more than a year, America Online, the nation's most favored on-ramp to 
the Internet, led a pitched battle in statehouses and city halls around the 
country, mobilizing lobbyists and proposing rules to force cable television 
companies to share their links into homes with rivals.

Without such rules, AOL warned, cable operators offering high-speed 
Internet access could seize control of the gateway to the global computer 
network. The free nature of the Web was at risk.

Then, last month, AOL essentially became a cable company: It agreed to buy 
Time Warner, securing a route into 20 million homes via the company's cable 
links. Now, AOL has pulled back from its "open access" crusade.

This week, the Dulles-based company took no action as two bills mandating 
open access died in the Virginia General Assembly. It has told its 
lobbyists in other states, including Maryland, not to advocate similar 
legislation. And the company has quieted its demands that federal 
authorities condition approval of the merger of AT&T Corp. and cable giant 
MediaOne Group Inc. on promises of open access.

AOL still contends that cable systems must offer their customers a choice 
of Internet providers – and it still wants to make deals to get itself on 
other systems. But now the company asserts that the market should sort out 
the details.

...





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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, ~1784
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