SCN: IM

[Steve]

x-no-archive: yes

=========================

Why the FCC Failed Us by Giving AOL a Free Pass  

(Patrick Houston, ZDNet AnchorDesk)---Let me begin this debate by 
posing a hypothetical situation: You pick up the phone and dial long-
distance -- only to encounter a fast busy signal. You try and try 
again. Finally, frustrated, you call the operator and ask, "What's 
wrong?"  

"Sorry," the operator replies. "But our service no longer works with 
any other carrier. You're only able to dial the customers on this 
system."  

Be honest now. What would you do? Let me guess. You'd rail and 
curse. You'd cancel the service right then and there. You'd phone 
your state's public utility commission, your Congressional 
representative and, no doubt, the Federal Communications 
Commission.  

So let me ask you this: What aren't you similarly up in arms about 
the FCC's failure to allow you to use the instant messaging service 
of your choice to communicate to your family, friends or associates 
who happen to be using an instant messaging service of their 
choice?  

This is precisely the situation we have right now. The reason for it is 
clear and concrete: AOL, which dominates the market with some 148 
million registered IM users, steadfastly refuses to allow other 
services to interoperate with its own.  

It doesn't have to be this way. Or it didn't. The FCC had the 
opportunity to rectify this situation as part of process toward 
granting AOL approval to consummate its $106 billion merger with 
Time Warner. But it didn't. Instead it gave its thumb's up to the 
mega-deal last Friday in a quid pro quo that's all quid and no quo.  

Yes, it mandated interoperability - sort of. Under the FCC ruling AOL 
will indeed be required to open its service -- when, that is, the time 
comes for AOL to launch "advanced, IM-based high-speed services," 
a broadband-based form of IM that will make for a form of video-
conferencing. The catch, however, is that AOL, by its own admission, 
has no plans for any such service.  

And I take scant comfort from the FCC's reasoning that it didn't want 
to take away AOL's "earned monopoly" in instant messaging. But 
that logic, the government had no right either to revoke the 
monopoly that AT&T "earned" in telecommunications. Please, 
someone -- anyone -- tell me the difference.  

For my part, I want instant messaging to work -- period -- without 
consideration to the software or service provider. And I take this 
stand for two reasons:  

Practicality. For me -- and a growing legion of users -- instant 
messaging isn't just another form of "chat." I use IM to communicate 
with colleagues every day whether they're down a floor or Down 
Under. In the swift-moving world of my work, one in which geography 
and distance have little meaning, IM has become an essential form 
of business communications, second only to e-mail. 

Principle. I would have sided with the FCC if AOL had "earned" 
instant messaging as its sole monopoly, and one upon which its 
entire fortune rested. But nothing could be further from the truth. As I 
pointed out in my Monday column, AOL Time Warner is a financial 
behemoth. It owns an unsurpassed wealth of content in the 
Information Age. And it holds, in the form of its cable and online 
assets, the golden geese to distribution.  

If this doesn't represent a frightening concentration of wealth and 
power that shouldn't be checked in more than a meager way, then 
what does? So I concur with Jupiter Media Metrix analyst Seamus 
McAteer when he told reporters Paul Festa and Stefanie Olsen that 
the FCC "gifted" AOL the IM market. The FCC caved. And we'll regret 
the day that it did.  

Copyright 2001 ZD Inc.





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