Gatekeepers and service deliverers

One of the great battles looming in the next couple of years is the fight for ownership over the ways consumers navigate through TV content. This is currently the domain of the mighty cable companies, which have zealously guarded their control of channel line-ups for more than three decades. Along with satellite TV providers, these are television's gatekeepers. Interestingly, they also supply the very technology--broadband Internet--that could destroy their position as gatekeepers.

They now deliver digital TV and high-speed data over the same pipe. But television is delivered in a closed, proprietary format that they completely control. So it is that these folks are very happy to deliver Internet service over that same pipe while billing you an extra $40 a month. They are gleefully launching a weapon of mass destruction aimed at the phone companies in the form of VoIP, a lower-price phone service they will roll out for another $20 a month. Ka-ching!

But what happens when the very same movies they offer on pay-per-view become available over the

Internet, not just to your computer but to your TV? Will they join the convergence party and help shape the coming revolution, or will they start pricing your broadband connection based on "bit consumption" to ensure that it does not compete with their core video business?

And what about the phone companies? Don't expect them to sit idly while the cable companies steal their voice customers with VoIP. A digital subscriber line connection to a set-top box like TiVo would be a very capable way of delivering video services into the home, enabling them to strike back at the cable companies' core business.

So it's not just a war over who the gatekeeper will be, but also one over who will deliver these new converged services. We are on the precipice of a nuclear battle for the hearts and minds of the very couch potatoes who, up until now, have not been very interested in anything that complicates their TV "zone out" time. That will change, once Generation X starts paying the broadband bills.

Bio: Barry Schuler in 1989 co-founded design company Medior, which America Online acquired in 1995. He was named president of AOL's Interactive Services group in 1998, and served as the online giant's chairman and chief executive until after the company merged with Time Warner in 2000. He now serves as chairman of The Meteor Group, which invests in and assists the development of new technologies.