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CPT on "Inside Wiring" of Cable Networks
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INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
April 2, 1996 - Customer Premise Equipment and Cable Networks
Cable Modems/ Interoperability
- These are some brief comments we filed with the FCC in a docket about
"inside wiring" for cable systems. It is in response to a petition from
the Media Access Project (MAP) and the United States Telephone Association
and Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation. MAP is one of the best
public interest groups working on telecommunications issues in Washington,
DC. The MAP petition asks the FCC to adopt rules that give consumers
greater rights to buy their own "customer premise equipment" for cable
system -- basically making the rules the same as they are now for
telephone service. The FCC Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) is found
at:
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/Notices/fcc95504.txt
Our comments support the MAP petition. The most interesting part
of our comments concern a problem that occurred in a US West TeleChoice
Interactive network in Omaha Nebraska. US West sought to prevent small
businesses from using the network as providers of information services, by
refusing to release information needed to develop software that was
interoperable with the US WEST broadband network. US WEST is now a very
important cable operator, with a large ownership interest in Time-Warner,
and the recent acquisition of Continental Cablevision. US West is also a
partner with TCI in cable venture in England. The Omaha story involves a
small high technology firm called Cottonwood (http://www.cottonwood.com).
We also talk briefly about potential problems with cable modems. Here are
our comments.
james love (love@tap.org; 202/387-8030).
Before the
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20554
FCC 95-504
In the Matter of )
Telecommunications Services ) CS Docket No. 95-184
Inside Wiring )
Customer Premises Equipment )
INSIDE WIRING
1. Introduction
The Consumer Project on Technology offers comments on
the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) on
"Inside Wiring" for cable systems. We are particularly
interested in the impact of this rulemaking on the future of
broadband cable systems, or the new generation of
information services delivered over cable modems. We are in
agreement with the Media Access Project (MAP) and other
petitioners who seek rules that would give consumers the
right to obtain customer premises equipment (and software)
from third parties, and prevent cable companies from
exercising the same type control over interactive services
that they have exercised in the past over traditional one-
way closed cable systems. It is essential that the
Commission begin to address these issues as the industry
moves forward on the development of new network designs. It
is also true that the Commission's older rules for common
carrier video dialtone systems were in need of changes to
prevent the firms who own the broadband carriage facilities
from exercising undue monopoly power over the provision of
information systems to the residential market, harming
consumers and unaffiliated information providers.
2. The USWEST TeleChoice Interactive network in Omaha
Nebraska
The recent experience with the US West TeleChoice
network in Omaha Nebraska is instructive. USW sought to
develop a broadband fully interactive network that would
permit video on demand and many new digital information
services. USW built this project around a proprietary "set-
top" technology. Firms were invited to develop information
services that would be delivered over the TeleChoice
network. US West sought "partnership" and "affiliation"
arraignments with content providers, and it also sought to
prevent unaffiliated firms from obtaining full access to the
network.
Under the Commissions Video Dialtone (VDT) rules US
West was supposed to operate the Omaha TeleChoice network as
a common carrier, giving unaffiliated information providers
an equal opportunity to compete against the US West
offerings.
US West sought to circumvent the Commission's common
carriage rules by offering consumers a proprietary "set-top"
device that controlled access to programming. US West
prevented unaffiliated programmers from using the customers'
US West set-top device by withholding information about the
software interface. Firms that did not negotiate special
"affiliate" agreements with US West were not given the
information which was needed to create services that would
be interoperable with the US West set-top device. Consumers
could not navigate the unaffiliated program offerings
without purchasing a second set-top device, at an estimated
cost of several hundred dollars.
One programmer, Cottonwood, sought to offer two
interactive multimedia services over the US West Omaha
TeleChoice network that would have offered competition to
services offered by US West or its affiliated programmers.
One of the services was an advertiser supported multimedia
presentation of real estate for sale. Another was a health
information service that would have been supported by
various health care providers. In both cases the services
would have been free to the consumer. While Cottonwood
would have been able to lease a tariffed digital channel for
programming, the Cottonwood services would not have been
available to the consumer without the purchase of a non-US
West set-top. This deterred Cottonwood, a small business
with a high technology product, from offering service in
competition with US West. For more information about the
Cottonwood experience with US West, contact Cottonwood at
402-341-1488, or on the Web at http://www.cottonwood.com.
While the US West problems occurred under a VDT trial
which was subsequently significantly reduced in scope by US
West, it illustrates the types of problems that the
Commission should anticipate, particularly now that US West
is one of the largest investors of cable services in the
United States.
3. Cable Modems
We are very interested in the development of cable
modems. We hope that cable modem technology will be an
important open platform for the next generation of
information services. However, we are concerned that
several cable companies have indicated that the customer
will not be permitted to purchase their own cable modems, or
more generally, install their own customer premise equipment
(CPE). This will prevent consumers from have the
opportunity to select CPE that best suits their needs.
In our discussions with the cable industry we have been
told of various plans for the deployment of cable modems.
Some schemes would have the cable companies require the
consumers to use proprietary software to use the cable
Internet service.. One company told us that they did not
want consumers to have the ability to offer their own home
pages from their home servers, and that this would be a
special service offered by the cable company. There are
also various proposals by the cable operators to create
special high speed servers for information service
providers, that offer superior performance to that offered
by ordinary Internet connections. We have not seen the
details of these schemes, but we are concerned that the
cable companies may attempt to limit the functionality of
cable modems in order to favor services offered by
affiliated providers.
We urge the Commission to adopt the strongest possible
measures which insure that consumers have the most
competitive options for obtaining CPE, including cable
modems, with are fully interoperable with the network
services. This is necessary to promote competition among
value added services, and to facilitate the development of
new innovative products and services.
Sincerely,
James Love
Director
Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367
Washington, DC 20036
http://www.essential.org/cpt
Voice: 202/387-8030
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