Would Provide Consumer Choice. GTE conducted the Clearwater demonstration project over the past two months in conjunction with AOL, CompuServe Classic, as well as its own ISP, GTE.net. GTE's demonstration pilot flatly discredits the claim that open access and consumer choice are technologically complicated and costly. GTE is uniquely positioned to demonstrate the feasibility of open access.
American consumers deserve nothing less.
Consumers Are Denied a True Choice Today Today, Americans with high-speed cable modem service don't have a choice of Internet service providers. Cable companies have refused to open their networks as telephone companies have done. Rather, cable companies package cable modem service together with their affiliated ISP service. In addition, this doubling up causes a deterioration of service quality and allows the cable company to control what the ISP delivers to the customer. Such a scheme locks customers into the cable company's chosen ISP in order to get high-speed Internet access, and denies consumers effective choice.