Open access to cable networks? ‘Do not hold your breath’

(Telephony) Jim Higgins, senior vice president of business development for broadband service provider [BSP] overbuilder Wide Open West has some advice for ISPs waiting to get onto cable’s high-speed broadband access networks any time soon: “Do not hold your breath.”

Higgins, speaking on a panel at Spring ISPCon in Baltimore, made it clear that incumbent cable operators, unlike overbuilders like WOW, have very little interest or incentive to open their networks to multiple ISPs and that it’s unlikely those networks will be opened any time in the next half decade or so.

WOW is different because it is building its broadband network with open access as a keystone.

“We’re committed to the customer’s choice of an ISP,” he said. “We have a network that’s ready to go” which is “significantly different from the cable companies who have these trials, but I’m not sure where their heart is.”

WOW is a start-up operating in Colorado with only 400 customers and two additional ISPs. It projects growth to reach millions of subscribers in the next few years based on a model of bundling voice, digital video and high-speed data services.

ISPs who ride on WOW’s network pay monthly “acceptable rates”--below those charged by cable and DSL providers--“can charge what they think is appropriate for true high-speed broadband access” to their subscribers, Higgins said.

This, he said, benefits subscribers in the end.

“There’s no reason to slam our ISP offering down their throats,” he said. “We look at ISPs as marketing partners.”

That’s a different approach than the cable companies are likely to take, agreed Randy Fuller, vice president of marketing at Emperative.

“The cable industry is not going as fast as they should,” he admitted.

About the fastest mover is Time Warner Cable, which is being watched closely by the federal government as a condition of its acquisition by America Online.

“Time Warner will make the most progress the fastest,” Fuller said, although that is more likely to be “managed access rather than true open access.

“Beyond Time Warner--AT&T, we’ll see how it goes--it will take some legislative action” to really get the ball rolling, he said.