Re: Open Cable

I work for a small local cable company. We allow our customers to utilize our cable network to access the internet, which allows for much higher speeds than a standard phone connection, for not much higher cost. Additionally, the customers are online 24 hours a day, without any dialling time.

The catch? You have to use us as an ISP. You can't use AOL, Mindspring/Earthlink, or your local ISP. You gotta use us. We have "closed" cable, and (IMHO) its really hurting both us and our customers.

If Time Warner goes through with its open cable plans, any customer of TW Cable can use TW's cable network to access any ISP connected to the network. To complete the analogy, any ISP with a presence in our small town would be able to offer you a cable modem connection if we followed suit.

AOL, as the largest ISP in America, has the most to gain from an open cable network. If all the major cable companies went open, then every cable subscriber in America could use AOL Cable, regardless of where they live. By making Time Warner go open, they are hoping to force the other cable companies to follow suit, which will increase AOL's potential market share (and our little company's little monopoly).

I hope that cleared things up!