The issue of cable open access is much more than an industry squabble or a regulatory food fight. In fact, whether the cable plant is open or closed to competitive access is a major fork in the road for this nation's policy towards competition, convergence, the Internet and electronic commerce. It is even more importantly about vertical linkage of backbone, access, content, and e-commerce. Cable does not want more programming competition from Internet players. Instead of having to buy entire packages of programming from cable, Internet competitors could offer micro-programming packages so consumers could buy only the programming they want, when they want it, and how they want it.
Most consumers use and want only a fraction of the channels they are forced to buy in a package.
If consumers could choose only what they want to see, ultimately no one would have to pay for programming they do not want or support. If consumers wanted to, they could dramatically either decrease or increase their cable bill depending on their individual viewing choices. Almost everywhere else in the economy, the Internet is empowering consumers with more choice. Closed cable access would allow cable video programming to increasingly become an island - impeding outside Internet innovation. Higher speeds could create an entirely new and more competitive video marketplace.