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Steve Case and Jerry Levin are so confident in the future of AOL Time Warner that they just aren't going to let powerful competitors, wary consumers or, especially, the Federal Government stop them. That's why for more than six months they directed their top executives to endure hundreds of hours of interrogation in Room No. 385 of the Federal Trade Commission building in Washington, and why they showered thousands of proprietary documents on their inquisitors. And it's exactly why they faxed, on the eve of last week's FTC vote, the final written concession that...
...combination will be, for better or worse, the world's biggest media conglomerate. (Of which TIME will be a part.) It's a vast empire of broadcasting, music, movies and publishing assets, complemented by AOL's dominant Internet presence, all fed to consumers, ultimately, through Time Warner's cable network. Think of it as AOL Time Warner Anywhere, Anytime, Anyhow...
...ensure that the pipes, just like federal highways, were open to everyone, making "open access" to the two companies' cable and Internet services the price of approval. Case and Levin agreed to allow at least three other Internet service providers access to Time Warner cable lines and decreed that AOL would continue to invest in slower, phone-based DSL service...
...Before the merger, as an occasional business writer, I was suspicious of AOL's long-term value, because what were they, really, except a big ISP? They were just another dot-com that didn't really make anything. Since the merger started, all that's changed is I know AOL was suspicious...
...Besides, when it comes to new media, my 20-odd TIME.com colleagues and I are at the thin end of the wedge. On the new-media prow of the TIME magazine flagship. Time Warner is an Internet company now, and we are the Internet. In other words, AOL's gonna have to come through...