While the Feds are busy trying to bust up King County's homegrown monopolist, Microsoft, the King County Council is busy putting the pieces in place to accommodate a potential new monopoly: AT&T.

Last week, the council's utilities committee approved an Internet access proposal that, critics say, would allow AT&T to unfairly dominate the local Internet market. The ordinance, sponsored by Eastside Republican council member David Irons (who received $350 from AT&T Wireless department director Elizabeth Anderson during his '99 campaign), would allow AT&T to bundle its own Internet service provider, Excite@Home, with the cable lines that the phone giant acquired when it bought TCI. By bundling the two services, AT&T will effectively force local cable subscribers to buy AT&T's Internet services even if they'd prefer another ISP. This creates a situation akin to Microsoft's bundling plan, where Windows users wound up with the Explorer browser by default.

The solution, as consumer advocates see it, rests on the notion of "open access," which would force AT&T to open up its cable lines to other ISPs, so that AT&T's monopoly on the cable lines doesn't become a default monopoly on Internet service.

In a May 1 press release, Irons proclaimed that the ordinance will "ensure that residents receive the best possible deals on... all Internet services... setting a price cap for the service at $39.95," and concluded that "citizens... will have a choice of Internet service provider."

However, according to public officials in Portland, Oregon (Portland won a lawsuit against AT&T over the open access issue last year, which AT&T has appealed), King County's position is laughable. "Boy, they really drive a hard bargain up there," scoffs Marshall Runkel, a Portland City Council staffer. "Not only is $39.95 outlandishly steep for Internet access, but it's blatantly false to say this measure gives citizens a real choice of Internet service providers. Only consumers who are idiotic enough to pay another company for duplicate service will do so."

Irons' chief of staff, Denise Passinetti, acknowledges that the ordinance gives AT&T a temporary advantage, but says other considerations come into play. First and foremost, Passinetti says the council has a responsibility to deliver high-speed Internet service to constituents. (The technology hasn't been available to parts of King County.) If public policy makers are too strict about regulating AT&T, Passinetti says, the company won't roll out its service. Second, Passinetti points out that nearly every jurisdiction across the country that has demanded "open access" has gotten hit with an expensive lawsuit from AT&T. ("I think we've made our position pretty clear on that," AT&T spokesman Steve Kipp told The Stranger.) "It's a nice compromise," she says of King County's plan, "getting service without the costs of litigation."

King County, it seems, is content to let other locales like Portland do the heavy lifting, while we appease AT&T.