All broadband providers can benefit from open access because it allows them to specialize in taking care of their customers while managing their service providers, bandwidth, and network reliability. Best of all, open access completes the vision of broadband by placing new service activation on the open market and making bandwidth available for any new startup that wants to become part of broadband. Next month, we ll be back to address the problem of managing the connectivity associated with open access. Bruce Bahlmann is senior architect for Alopa Networks. Although most of the attention on open access has focused on high-speed data services, we ought not to limit our thinking to data.
Open access means freedom of choice for all types of information and entertainment services.
While open access promises to bring nothing but good things to customers, the challenges faced by vendors and broadband operators to implement it are steep. Many of the components required to completely implement an open broadband system do not yet exist. In part one of this three-part series, we explore at some of the issues to be tackled before open access is a success. All rights reserved.