Its purchase of AT&T Broadband completed, Comcast Corp now finds itself with unprecedented power to shape the future of Internet access in the US.
The US$29.2 billion acquisition gives Comcast more than 22 million cable TV customers in 17 of the 20 largest cities.
Opportunity is ripe for company executives to push potentially lucrative services such as digital cable, video on demand and high-speed Internet access.
Chief executive Brian Roberts contends customers' entertainment and information options will only increase. Comcast is "committed to trying to give consumers choices of their Internet service providers," said.
But critics fear that Comcast -- able to control how its Internet customers access the Web and get movies, interactive games and other features still in the broadband nursery -- will choose to steer people to its own services and to programming that brings it revenue.
"Is it going to be this open world, or something competitive and proprietary that shifts users into a carefully managed environment?" wonders Harold Feld, attorney for the Washington-based Media Access Project.
Comcast's newfound heft has created an unlikely coalition of consumer-advocacy groups like Media Access and huge companies including Microsoft Corp and Walt Disney Co.
In a Nov. 18 letter, they urge federal regulators to do its utmost to oblige telecommunications providers -- be they Baby Bells or cable companies -- to give competitors equal access to their high-speed networks.
The letter followed the FCC's approval of Comcast's AT&T Broadband acquisition, forming a cable leader nearly twice as large as No. 2 AOL Time Warner. The FCC decided not to require that Comcast guarantee equal access to competitors.
In a separate letter, Microsoft counsel Gerard J. Waldron warned that widespread high-speed access will accomplish little if consumers cannot freely roam the Internet, run the applications they want using the equipment they choose and connect to Web sites without interference by network operators.
Of course, even the new, giant Comcast doesn't dominate Internet access yet.
Its 3.3 million high-speed Internet customers is dwarfed by the 26 million US subscribers for America Online, which includes about 3 million broadband subscribers to Time Warner Cable's Road Runner network and scattered others.
"As far as market power and who controls the gateway for more customers, broadband is still a much smaller slice of the Internet pie," said Michael Harris, president of broadband research firm Kinetic Strategies.
But it is growing fast, with 20 million US and Canadian homes expected to have high-speed service via cable modem or souped-up phone lines called DSL by year's end.
Feld worries that the companies that control high-speed connections will increasingly control Internet access, as Web sites add features that take advantage of the speed, making dial-up connections less useful.
Critics say cable operators could give preferential treatment to business partners or make competitors' content difficult to find or slow to load. In fact, a 1998 regulatory filing from the now-defunct ExciteAtHome envisioned storing materials from business partners locally, making them faster to deliver over cable systems.
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