RUMOR MILL
Thursday, April 26, 2001
JUNO, AOLTW PACT TO DELIVER WEB ACCESS
It’s Misleading, Because "Open Access" Sounds So Sexy, But It’s Really Not At All
Internet services provider Juno announced Thursday (4/26) that it has pacted with AOL Time Warner to deliver high-speed Web access over the company's cable pipelines.
Under the pact, which the two companies have been working on since last summer, both companies will be free to market the service independently.
As part of federal regulators' approval of the $106.2 billion merger between America Online and Time Warner, the company was required to strike pacts to allow Internet service providers to deliver Web access over their cable lines. Of course, now that the merger is a done deal, this whole "open access" issue seems pretty moot.
The Juno pact marks the second open access pact for Time Warner Cable, which signed a similar pact with EarthLink late last year.
The initial launch of services is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2001.
