Guide to the State of Broadband Service in Los Angeles.

AMERICA Online Inc.'s merger with Time Warner Inc. has heightened interest in high-speed, "broadband" Internet access. Cable, telephone and satellite companies are spending billions to bring faster service to homes and businesses.

But these new services have found few takers so far because consumers seem to be skeptical, if not resistant, to paying for them.

Here is a look at the state of local broadband service.

Cable

The city of Los Angeles still has not taken a position in the debate over "open access" to high-speed Internet lines provided by cable companies, and the recent merger could influence matters.

When the AOL/Time Warner deal was announced, AOL, once a leader in the open-access movement that would require cable operators to make available their lines for lease, became the owner of Time Warner's cable properties and a part-owner of MediaOne.

AOL Chief Executive Steve Case now says that the open-access debate should be decided "in the marketplace" and not by regulators. That stance is a reversal of AOL's earlier position, when it lobbied local governments to mandate open access.

So what is the city likely to do? By the end of February, Councilman Alex Padilla, who chairs the council's Information Technology Committee, is expected to recommend a policy to the committee, which will then take a vote and make a formal proposal to the council.

While spokesman David Gershwin would not give Padilla's position, he hinted that the councilman might be leaning toward open access.

"It's obvious that AOL, Time Warner and AT&T will do what's best for their companies," Gershwin said. "What's best for consumers may be entirely different."

To date, cable has lured the most broadband customers. The two leading portals -- Excite@home and RoadRunner -- claim about 1.5 million customers nationwide, about five times the number of individuals and businesses that have subscribed to DSL. Among local providers, MediaOne says it has around 20,000 broadband customers. TimeWarner says it may have about 8,000.

Cable might have the early lead in the number of subscribers, but it may also face the most obstacles for adding new customers. To offer enough bandwidth for two-way communications, cable companies have to replace their old one-way lines with new systems that can handle two-way traffic.

Locally, MediaOne spokeswoman Giselle Acevedo-Franco says about 80 percent of its customers now have access to broadband services, and the entire network will be upgraded by the end of 2001. Likewise, Adelphia Communications Vice President Bill Rosendahl says that company's entire network will be upgraded by the end of next year.

DSL

Phone companies face a different infrastructure challenge than their cable counterparts. DSL signal can travel only about 3.5 miles from the central switching station, a location that contains modems and other switching equipment. To deliver service to a large area, a DSL provider has to set up lots of stations.

GTE Corp. has 550 switching centers in California that reach about 1.5 million customers, says GTE spokesman Bill Kula. Still, only about 15,000 people have signed up for the service statewide. (The company does not have numbers for the Los Angeles region.)

Pacific Bell officials said their DSL service can reach about 2.5 million customers in California, but they had no actual subscriber numbers available.

Despite the distance limitations, DSL may be able to reach new customers more quickly than cable.

Satellite

For about four years, high-speed Internet access has been available to just about everyone in the country through Hughes Electronics Corp.'s DirecPC division.

A tiny receiving antenna picks up signals from a satellite and beams it to a modem that's plugged into the consumer's desktop computer. The cost of equipment, installation and monthly service is a bit higher than DSL or cable.

Satellite service offers one advantage -- it isn't necessary to live or work near a large population center to get it. It's as economical to link up a single home on a mountaintop as it is to connect a subdivision, says Paul Gaske, a senior vice president at DirecPC.

There are only a few thousand subscribers nationwide, but Gaske says that's changing. Just before Christmas, the company launched its first major marketing campaign at Best Buy retailers and through other local chains. And this summer, AOL will become DirecPC's Internet service provider.

Consumer reluctance

So if high-speed Internet service is readily available through several pipelines, why aren't more people using it? One reason is cost. Another is convenience: Cable-modem or DSL service requires on-site installation as well as modification of computer software.

"Companies would like to say their service is 'plug and play,' but (the modifications) can really make it 'plug and play around,'" DirecPC's Gaske concedes. Before making a commitment to alter their home computers, many consumers seem content to wait and make sure they're signing up for a service they can live with for a long time.

And 56K dial-up modems work pretty well for most of today's applications, notes Cliff Numark, program director at the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance.

But that may not be the case much longer. "As technology increases and the kinds of information people get online become more sophisticated, there will be more demand for high-speed Internet access," Numark said.