WASHINGTON-In a move with major implications for the future of mobile commerce and the $183 billion merger between America Online Inc. and Time Warner Inc., the Federal Communications Commission last week launched an inquiry into whether high-speed Internet open access should be mandated for wireless services and other technologies.
The issue, which took the wireless industry by surprise late last week, was forced on the FCC as a result of court decisions and industry lobbying on the lack of access by Internet service providers to cable Internet systems.
“If you look at this, you need to have a global approach,” said Rob Hoggarth, senior vice president of government relations for the Personal Communications Industry Association. “We’ve always supported open architecture.”
At the same time, Hoggarth said PCIA will have to study the FCC’s notice of inquiry carefully before deciding whether to support open access for wireless Internet.
Hoggarth said open access for wireless Internet is a tricky issue because of the many policy, technological, legal and business issues that it raises for the nascent wireless dot-com market.
Pointing to the importance of maintaining network reliability and security, Hoggarth said-at a minimum-the FCC must ensure that wireless carriers retain some level of control over their networks.
The idea of the FCC examining wireless Internet open access was encouraged during a panel at PCIA’s annual conference in Chicago last week by Rama Aysola, founder and chief executive officer of AirFlash Inc.
“Washington gets involved where they shouldn’t be involved and they don’t get involved where they should. … Open access is the third thing the government can allow, said Aysola, after mentioning spectrum allocation and enforced enhanced 911 mandates. AirFlash is a location technology-based mobile-commerce vendor.
Indeed, the question of mandated open access for wireless Internet networks goes to the more fundamental issue of the future of mobile commerce. A government-imposed mandate could influence technological development of the wireless Interent.
Given resistance in the cable TV industry to embrace Internet open access and conflicting court decisions, FCC Chairman William Kennard said the time is right to tackle the issue from a broad policy prospective.
“It is unclear … whether a marketplace solution will develop absent some form of intervention,” said Kennard.
For months, consumer advocates and ISPs have been aggressively lobbying policy makers to require Internet open access.
“Any policies concerning high-speed access should be decided at the national level, because these issues, like the broadband networks themselves, are national in scope,” said Kennard.
The FCC’s decision to investigate Internet open access comes as the proposed AOL-Time Warner merger is under the microscope by the FCC, Federal Trade Commission and the European Union.
Federal regulators are considering conditioning any approval of the AOL-Time Warner merger on the opening up of high-speed Internet cable lines (controlled by Time Warner) to competing ISPs.
AOL, which last week entered into a $100 million partnership with NTT DoCoMo, and Time Warner oppose any such condition.
It is unclear how the FCC will reconcile the possibility of imposing an open access condition on the AOL-Time Warner merger while-in a separate proceeding that could take more than a year to resolve-considering whether open access is good policy generally.
As such, it has been suggested that initiating the FCC inquiry into Internet open access at this time might have been designed to give political cover to FCC commissioners, who have yet to rule on the AOL-Time Warner merger.
In other words, the FCC could refrain from conditioning the AOL-Time Warner merger because they might argue that to do so would prejudice the open-access proceeding.
Not so, said FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani, in a statement accompanying the FCC’s decision to open an inquiry into Internet open access.
“While we must fully inform ourselves of the implications of establishing a national framework for all high-speed service delivery methods, our action here does not prejudge our approach in specific cases that come before us,” said Tristani.
However, speaking on the AOL-Time Warner merger several months ago, Tristani said something very different.
“Another persistent question is whether the commission should address the issue of open access or wait for an industrywide proceeding. These and other pressing questions will not be answered today,” said Tristani on July 27. “But we must answer them before we complete our merger review.”
A decision on the AOL-Time Warner merger is expected to come long before the FCC rules on Internet open-access policy.
