Companies in the Pacific Coastal region of California are concerned about losing wholesale access to Time Warner Cable’s business fiber network if the cable company is acquired by Comcast.

Independent business communications providers acquire connectivity at wholesale rates from providers like Time Warner Cable and provide competition in the telecommunications marketplace.

“Time Warner Cable actually provides wholesale access, at least to its fiber network,” Dave Clark, president of Santa Barbara-based Impulse Advanced Communications, told the Pacific Coast Business Times. “From a competitive telecom perspective, they cooperate and work with competitive telecoms. Comcast does not. The big fear in the competitive telecom industry is that Comcast buys Time Warner and cuts [wholesale access] off.”

Currently, third-party access to cable broadband technology is provided on a voluntary basis by cable operators. Regulated telephone companies like Verizon and AT&T that serve California are required to offer open access to competitors, at least on their copper line networks.

If Comcast decides it won’t continue wholesale access to Time Warner’s network, it can cut off access almost immediately.

“The worst impact is going to be Ventura County, which has chunks of Time Warner,” Clark told the newspaper. “If Time Warner down there stops providing any wholesale access to facilities, those customers will be worse off. They’ll have fewer competitive options.”

Customers in Ventura, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara counties would see the number of cable providers serving the area cut in half, from four providers to two. Charter and Time Warner Cable customers would be transferred to Comcast. That’s a major development, because Comcast now only operates in a tiny area of Santa Maria and the Santa Ynez Valley. Now the company would be dominant in Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties. Cox would still serve its customers in the South Coast region.