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Concept
Broadband open access
Summary
Broadband open access is an issue of policy debate in telecommunications, regarding whether or not companies which own broadband telecommunication infrastructure (such as cable operators) should be required to provide access to their facilities for competing businesses which do not own physical infrastructure. The issue came to the fore in the U.S. in 1998, when AT&T Corporation announced its plan to acquire TCI, then the nation's largest cable operator. It involved municipal and local governments, the courts, Federal Communications Commission (the FCC), Congress, businesses, industry associations, consumer advocacy groups, and many others. Similar issues arose in other countries such as the Netherlands, Hungary, and Canada.
In the United States, cable operators were not required to provide access to their facilities to other competing businesses. However, local telephone providers with physical infrastructure, or incumbent local exchange carriers, had such an obligation. This asymmetrical scheme of regulation became a problem when the two industries' businesses came to overlap and the boundary between them eroded. This transformation of industrial landscape, often called convergence, happened in the broadband Internet service provider market. To make matters worse, the cable operators were the leading camp although local telephone carriers were burdened by the open-access obligation.
Broadband high-speed internet has become a worldwide breakthrough for telecommunication services. The service has become crucial for businesses to be able to communicate with customers and is on the verge of being a standard public utility, rather than a luxury for residents. Although other services are still offered, like dial-up Internet access or satellite internet access, broadband internet is the most convenient and fastest mode of telecommunications. With broadband open access, the popularity of this service is in great demand.
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