Culver City Unafraid to Slam AT & T; on Open Access

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As the city of Los Angeles continues to mull the open-access debate, other Southern California municipalities are forging ahead.

Last week, the City Council in Culver City decided to require that AT & T; open its high-speed Internet lines to competition as a condition of approving the transfer of the city’s cable franchise from MediaOne to the telecom giant. “We’re not interested in regulating the Internet,” said Culver City Mayor Richard Marcus at the council hearing. “We are interested in regulating our (cable) franchise as the law allows us to do.”

At last Monday night’s meeting, council members voted 5-0 to require that AT & T; allow all Internet service providers to lease access to AT & T;’s cable network at the same rate that it offers to Excite@Home. This decision tacitly rejects AT & T;’s recent decision to open its infrastructure to competitors in 2002 as inadequate.

Culver City is one of the more wired cities in Southern California, and boasts high business and residential broadband subscription rates. In all likelihood, the city will next face a lawsuit from AT & T; as a result of its action. AT & T;’s lawsuit against Portland, Ore.’s City Council is currently wending its way through the courts.

“We believe that a lawsuit is a strong possibility, but we truly believe that high-speed Internet access falls in the public right of way, like telephone service and electricity,” said Randi Joseph, who is responsible for the oversight of Culver City’s cable television services.

Meanwhile, local Internet service providers are delighted at the Culver City decision. Jim Pickrell, president of Santa Monica-based Brand X, said his company was “chomping at the bit” to offer an alternative cable modem service to MediaOne customers.

“We have the technology, the equipment and the service,” he said. “What we don’t have yet is the opportunity.”

Musical Chairs

The new-media industry seems impervious to the rule of thumb that the job market cools during the holiday period.

Go.com’s former president of e-commerce, Chuck Davis, has joined BizRate.com as its president and chief executive. Three-year old, L.A-based BizRate.com specializes in gathering and aggregating customer satisfaction information on thousands of e-commerce sites. Davis succeeds BizRate.com co-founder Farhad Mohit, who will become BizRate’s chairman and chief strategic officer.

Meanwhile, Kenneth Wong, former president of Walt Disney Imagineering, has been named chairman and CEO of Pop.com, the two-month-old Internet entertainment company founded by Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Paul Allen. L.A.-based Pop.com will feature short live-action and animated films on its Web site, which is expected to debut this spring. Wong resigned from Disney in October.

Steve Hansen, the former GeoCities chief operating officer who helped navigate the company’s acquisition by Yahoo!, has been named chief executive officer for L.A.-based Tonos.com. Tonos is yet another Internet music news and entertainment company, but is backed by the substantial street credentials of the prolific and award-decorated songwriter Kenneth “Babyface” Edwards. Fellow songwriters David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager also are behind Tonos, which is expected to launch online in early 2000.

Jim Rosenthal has been promoted to president of New Line Cinema’s new-media division. Rosenthal previously held the position of executive vice president of business development for New Line, where he helped build its new-media endeavors. Rosenthal is now charged with making the Internet a more important part of New Line’s entertainment business.

And finally, Robert Tercek has left Sony Pictures Entertainment to join San Diego-based PacketVideo Corp., a wireless multimedia software and services company. Tercek, who was senior vice president of digital media at Columbia TriStar Television, founded Sony’s interactive TV production division and is widely considered one of L.A.’s savviest new-media minds.

News and Notes

EMI Recorded Music has signed a licensing agreement with Santa Monica-based Launch Media to stream its music-video library on Launch’s music news and entertainment site. EMI has taken a small but undisclosed equity stake in Launch.

Microsoft Corp. has pledged to donate more than $500,000 in cash and software to three L.A. organizations: Computer Hope, Team TECH Los Angeles and Second Byte Foundation. The donations reflect Bill Gates’ concern of a two-tiered society delineated by the tech “haves and have-nots.” Computer Hope will use the funds to upgrade computers in its L.A. technology centers for the homeless. TECH Los Angeles will build community computer labs for underprivileged children, and Second Byte will work to place donated computer systems in the homes of needy junior high school students.

Contributing columnist Sara Fisher can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

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