ISPs are teaming up to lobby on Capitol Hill.

Large and small Internet service providers are teaming up to lobby on Capitol Hill in support of the issue many ISPs believe is crucial to their survival: opening up access to high-speed data lines now controlled by cable television services. The new OpenNet Coalition includes America Online Inc. and its soon-to-be subsidiary Netscape Communications Corp., MCI WorldCom Inc., US West Inc., Prodigy Communications Corp. and several local Internet service providers. The group believes that as higher-bandwidth Internet connections move toward becoming the standard route online for consumers, ISPs providing dial-up "narrowband" service could be forced out of the market. U.S. consumers will have a greater choice of Internet services if the network of cable pipes into their homes is opened up to competition from providers outside the cable industry, said Greg Simon, one of the directors of the coalition.