roundtable: Re: Switches, Cable and Video Dial Tone

roundtable: Re: Switches, Cable and Video Dial Tone

Re: Switches, Cable and Video Dial Tone

Michael Chui (mchui@cs.indiana.edu)
Thu, 17 Mar 1994 23:51:30 -0500 

Message-Id: <9403180451.AA09767@a.cni.org>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: Switches, Cable and Video Dial Tone 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 16 Mar 1994 19:02:01 EST."
             <Pine.3.85.9403161536.C5725-0100000@idi.net> 
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 23:51:30 -0500
From: Michael Chui <mchui@cs.indiana.edu>

"Samuel A. Simon" <ssimon@idi.net> writes:
>On Mon, 14 Mar 1994, Michael Chui wrote:
[snip]
>> However, this non-discriminatory
>> access should not be confined to *video* information providers; all
>> content providers should be permitted non-discriminatory access to
>> the broadband digital dialtone, without regard to the form in which their
>> information is finally displayed (i.e. video, text, audio, multimedia).
[snip]
>     This is the essence of common carriage, plus the reqiuremetn to meet 
>all reasonable demand for capacity.

     However, HR 3636 (pre-Dingell markup) only required broadband
non-discriminatory carriage for video programming vendors, not for
"providers of information services," a more content-neutral term.

>The primary issue that has developed 
>in telehpone and cable is the one associated with objectionable content. 

     And as the Net tenaciously grabs hold of the First Amendment,
would-be (FCC?) censors begin to tease its grip loose... :-(

>This isn't always the case, but it would be 
>more important in my mind to get help developing high quality (production 
>aspects) alternatie content, at which time access I bet would not be a 
>big issue.

     Could be.  But I think it's quite possible to develop high-quality
alternative content, especially in non-video formats like text, hypermedia
(witness the proliferation of Web sites) or audio.  I can hear the video
dialtone carriers saying, "Well, the law says non-discriminatory access
for video programmers - those funky digital packets you want to distribute
on our broadband network shore don't look like video on my set-top box.
But hey, why don't you just take all of that stuff and put it into one
of our new forums on Super-Prodigy, where everybody can get to it through
our broadband network for the low, low price of $0.10/access."

Michael Chui
mchui@cs.indiana.edu

P.S. And once again, pointers to post-Dingell markup electronic versions 
of HR 3636 would be appreciated.  :-)

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