[lug] Replacing leased cable modem with @Home?

[Frank Whiteley]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Reifschneider" <jafo at tummy.com>
To: <lug at lug.boulder.co.us>
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2001 4:44 AM
Subject: Re: [lug] Replacing leased cable modem with @Home?


> On Sat, Dec 01, 2001 at 10:02:32AM -0700, Techzone wrote:
> >A few of my customers keep limited dial-up in case the cable is out.  One
> >mentioned something about two weeks when he called this morning.  He just
> >called back to say ATT advised he might be back up in 1-14 days.  It's
> >national in scope.
>
> Being geeks, we had to have DSL for the backup.  ;-)
>
Hmmm, vice versa I'd think.  I have a little trouble with the lack of
'openness' and the 'service level' on the cable transport as it now exists,
but them's personal choices.

An interesting thread from the nanlog list

<quote>
>Dumb question.  If AT&T knows it will take them 10 days to fix their
>network, why didn't they start 11 days ago?  If AT&T had done that, it
>would have been finished already.  I guess I will never understand
>the logic used by telephone companies.
>
>On the other hand, I don't understand what this gets Excite at Home's
>creditors.  Once AT&T transfers its subscribers to a new network, why
>does it need @Home's network assets.  Over the next 10 days, @Home's
>value to AT&T drops to zero.

Because AT&T didn't have the right to break the contract (by
essentially "Stealing" @H customers), only E at H had that discretion
(as the party to whom the contract was "unbearable"). So until AT&T's
contract expired or was terminated, AT&T had to stick to it, but now
that the contract is terminated, they can haul ass converting the
users over to their own system.

At least that's my non-lawyer interpretation, given the various
stories I've read. :-)
</unquote>

Sniff, sniff, smells like about the same business ethics as BewellNet.

Actually, the ATT $307M offer for Excite at Home 4.1M customers wasn't too bad,
though Excite was saying it was worth $1B.  I figure it was worth about
$396M but discounted due to the $6M/month hemmorage that Excite was seeing.
This way, ATT picks up about $13.7M/month in revenue when they finish
'pinching' the customer base.  It'll probably cost ATT $100 or more/customer
to make the switch, so they'll take an expense of $85M or more at year end
to reduce their tax position and 6-12 months ROI.  I suppose they are also
in line also for one of these government 'incentive handouts' that Congress
seems to be so insistent is needed.  Wonder if Sean or I can get those?;^)

Sorry for getting so far off topic, especially since most ATT users probably
aren't getting this.

Frank Whiteley