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...AOL TV is just one-half of a digital double whammy. This summer AOL will start rolling out high-speed digital subscriber line (DSL) access to more than 16 million Bell Atlantic customers. Expect a ton of those annoying pop-up ads trumpeting the fact, and a slew of stories on Case's ominous-sounding broadband strategy, known in the trade as "AOL Everywhere...
Everywhere, of course, must include cable. Why? Because cable modems are so fast--almost twice as speedy as DSL and a full eight times as fast as satellite, at least in theory. "AOL still needs to deal with the cable guys," says Tom Wolzein, Internet analyst at Sanford Bernstein. "It has to be worried about getting locked out entirely, especially when Microsoft wants to be in everyone's online space...
...Case has that covered too. In the same week as his Microsoft deposition, the AOL boss took time out to appear on Capitol Hill to make an impassioned argument for government regulation in the cable-Internet industry. His pitch: the FCC needs to make sure that the little guys--which in his book include AOL--don't suffer if proprietorial cable services like AT&T's At Home or Time Warner's RoadRunner end up owning the online gateway. "It's a battle," Case said, "between good and evil." The FCC isn't entirely convinced, but it has agreed...
Microsoft execs will no doubt see a darker purpose in such a probe, just as they cried conspiracy when AOL bought Netscape while both were witnesses for the prosecution. Microsoft is convinced that AOL is hiding under the government's antitrust skirts, and there's little Case can do that won't be viewed in Redmond through that prism. When AOL bought Netscape, why didn't it change its default browser from Microsoft's to Netscape's? So as not to weaken the antitrust case, says Microsoft. "When the trial is over," predicts an exec, "they're going to switch...
...Gates. But when it comes to the broadband Internet, the world's richest man has reason to worry. After all, high-speed Web access and the proliferation of Web-based applications could one day make his operating system obsolete. That's why when the trial resumes, the threat of AOL Everywhere may be Microsoft's best defense...