AOL vs. Cable

America Online Chairman Steve Case is scheduled to go to Capitol Hill today to press his argument that cable television operators are unfairly keeping the world’s largest online service from competing in the emerging high-speed Internet world. Lawmakers attending the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the issue will hear the opposite view from Cox Communications President James Robbins.

The hearing comes as cable companies are rapidly rolling out high-speed Internet access, allowing subscribers to surf the World Wide Web at speeds 25 or more times faster than through ordinary modems. But unlike telephone companies offering Internet access, cable companies are permitted to require their customers to buy both access and Internet services, like e-mail and Web-page hosting, from them.

Case wants Congress to change that policy, allowing AOL to sign up customers who have super-fast cable access without making the customers also buy a cable Internet service provider like @Home. Robbins and other cable executives argue the government should not be dictating how they offer Internet services. The cable industry says it will use revenues from Internet services to lower the price charged for Internet access.

* Elsewhere on Capitol Hill today, Federal Reserve Governor Edward Kelley will testify to the House Banking Committee on the year 2000 computer bug and the financial services industry.