When Open Access Kept the Door Closed

Before Google gets too excited about open wireless access, it should look a little more closely at what did in AOL. The analogy is hardly perfect, but the new rules, promoted by Google, that will force Verizon to allow competitors to use its wireless network are in some way similar to those that forced phone companies to let rival Internet providers use their high-speed data services.
As their customers moved to broadband, AOL, EarthLink and the other companies that were leaders in the dial-up Internet business tried to soldier on by arranging to buy high-speed DSL service from telephone companies at wholesale rates to resell under their own names. This strategy completely failed. Today, only five percent of the users of phone company broadband buy their service from anyone other than the phone company, according to David Burstein, the editor of DSL Prime.

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