And unless we attend to it, economics may dictate technology. A network is open if it permits users, at their choice, to be connected to competing sources of information and permits providers easy access to users. In a truly open network, users and providers cannot be distinguished, although those connected to the network can be distinguished by the amount of bandwidth they require. The phone network is an example of an open network. For cable TV, an open network would permit a customer to connect to packaged TV programs offered by firms that compete with the network owner and the packages it offers.
Cable TV is a closed, vertically integrated system.
The existing cable TV system is well described in the white papers in this volume. What is important here is that the same company owns the network and sells, or arranges for the sale of, the content moving over the network. The business arrangements are, rather, first between content producer and the cable company and then, for those products that cable TV decides to offer, between the cable TV company and those connected to its network. It could be argued that the profits of cable TV flowing from its monopoly character are necessary to raise the money with which to upgrade the home network, but that harsh argument has not been advanced in the papers. Perhaps understandably, the papers do not make clear the closed character of vertically integrated networks in the absence of regulation.