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MAVIS SCANLON
The agreement giving High Speed Access the right to negotiate with ISP Channel's cable affiliates may have come too late for some cable systems.
ISP Channel mainly has contracts with smaller MSOs to provide turnkey Internet access, but its affiliate group includes one or two systems of larger MSOs, including AT&T Broadband, Charter Communications and Cox Communications.
AT&T Broadband, for instance, acquired the former Cable Communications Cooperative of Palo Alto, Calif., which serves about 28,000 customers, earlier this year. It agreed to honor a contract running through April that the five franchises had hammered out with ISP. But AT&T then received a letter from ISP saying it is ceasing operations Dec. 31.
"We have less than 47 days to try and design Internet access for 3,500 customers on an aging infrastructure," says Andrew Johnson, VP-communications at AT&T Broadband.
AT&T is "literally investigating every opportunity" to provide a smooth transfer, but there are several issues, Johnson says. "What happens to e-mail?" Does "ISP provide a forwarding service for e-mail or does it drop off? There's a lot riding on that alone."
An ISP spokeswoman she did not see the letter and therefore could not comment.
You've decided to get involved with the DBS litigation against must carry. Do you think other cable programmers or the cable industry as a whole should get involved?
I'm not really sure what others should do, except that the principle is still the same. The First Amendment applies to everybody, and it should not be a technology-driven decision. With this case, cable would be in a much better position regarding must carry than it was back in the mid-1990s.
Why is it important for C-SPAN to get involved with this suit?
Must carry seems to be the most unreal or unfair policy I've come across. It's been clear that this is a political decision, not an economic decision. And C-SPAN was hit directly on this. We know from experience that, in many cases, cable operators were forced to kick somebody off to find space for a broadcaster.
What's your opinion on how the broadcast and cable news networks handled their election coverage this year, particularly calling Florida so early?
I think those are two different things. Their coverage was fine. In a competitive environment like this you're not going to get anything much different. The least they could do when it comes to vote counting is forget this idea that they have to call it in the primetime hours of 8 to 11. In many cases, the broadcasters have abandoned their coverage of conventions and other political events. So why do this on that one night when it's so important to this country that people have a fair opportunity to go into the polls and vote without being influenced by outsiders?
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