<< At 02:03 PM 5/28/99 -0400, Grlygrl201@aol.com wrote:
>Er, this was an e-mail, and a VERY SMALL part of an e-mail. The part
>FoRKsters is missing follows:
>
>(ATT and AOL are C O M P E T I T O R S for the cable market. Baby Bells
are
>in more likely. Screwed up on the local loop? Please explain, beyond
Note I didn't say "screwed UP on the local loop", it was that Qwest was
"screwed ON the local loop". Dropping thousands of miles of fiber is a
drop in the bucket compared with the cost (both regulatory and
manpower-wise) of running a splinter of fiber to millions of customers.
As for ATT having jumped the gun, everyone I've spoken with around NYC is
ITCHING for another local telecom provider. Seems to me if ATT made an
offer, combining local service with cable/cablemodem/wireless/paging plans,
they'd have tons of people jumping for joy here. In the Land Of Bell
Atlantic (sort of like the Land Before Time), ADSL exists at a lowly 256k
downstream/90k upstream only, which protects BA's T1 business. Oh, and
it's more expensive than two ISDN BRI lines to boot.
-s
>>
My bad - sorry! I got speedy and careless.
"HIGH HURDLE"
Armstrong's task is tougher than most. With its monopolistic history and an
organizational sprawl, AT&T has had a hard time working with fast-moving
entrepreneurs. Now, Armstrong has to inegrate about 50,000 new workers,
soothe the egos of top managers, and meld the cultures of several very
different companies - all while investing billions to upgrade cable networks
so that they can handle telephony."Clearly there's a high hurdle in terms of
pulling together the various assets he's accumulated," says Deutsche Bank
Securities analyst Stuart P.Conrad.
"Armstrong has suffered setbacks. Robert Annunziata, the entrepreneur who
headed Teleport and became head of AT&T's business services, left earlier
this year to become CEO of Global Crossing, Ltd. (incidentally, GBLX is
Geege's current stock pick, after selling EXDS at 100% profit in under 2
months) an international telecom upstart. And Teleport is falling short of
the $330 million to $450 million in revenues that AT&T had predicted.
Armstrong blames conflict with Baby Bells for the revenue shortfall, adding
that some cost savings are ahead of budget."
"NO TIME
Armstrong has no time to lose. As he scrambles to combine the pieces of his
new company, Bell Atlantic Corp and SBC Communications Inc. are poised to
assail AT&T's core long distance business, which accounted for nearly 90% of
its of its $53 billion in revenues last year. Bell Atlantic may get into
long distance in New York in the next few months and by next year, AT&T may
face new rivals in a dozen key states."
(exepted from AT&T Reaches Out - But Is It Fast Enough? The Baby Bells are
close behind its Digital Age dealmaking, by Peter Engstrom in New York.)
**********************************************************************
but away from business and on to technology:
Also from BW, May 24 edition, by Catherine Yang in Washington, with Richard
Siklos and Steve Brull in New York, and Larry Armstrong in Los Angeles:
AMERICA ONLINE - AND ON THE AIR
Its Direct TV deal will leapfrog the PC. Take that, AT&T!
"When America Online Inc. decided against joining Comcast in a bidding war
for MediaOne Group, then online service looked as if it was being left behind
as deal mania swept through the communications and Internet markets. While
other companies were grabbing high-speed Internet pipes, AOL was stuck in the
slow lane. A week later, however, it was back in the game - announcing a
deal on May 11 with DirecTV. The deal will help AOL achieve its immediate
goal of expanding its audience beyond desktop computer users and could
eventually result in a satellite-based Internet service.
"Theres a simple reason that AOL wants to vault from the confines of the
phone system to television land: The potential market of 97 million American
households with televisons dwarfs its current 17 million customers. AOL's
rivals have already moved there - AT&T and Microsoft Corp are investing
billions tobring Internet-style services to the small screen. "It's clear
the TV is the new battlefield," says Hal M. Krisbergh, CEO of WorldGate
Communications Inc., an Internet cable service based in Bensalem, Pa.
"The first step: Sometime next year, AOL and DirecTV, a unit of Hughes
Electronics Corp., will offer a service that beams DirecTV programming form a
satellite and lets users log on to AOL via the television using phone lines.
According to sources close to the componies, however, there's a bigger deal
brewing: AOL would invest as much as $1 billion in Hughes Network Systems,
which is developing a two-way satellite service that would provide broadband
communications, perhaps as early as 2002. Spaceway, as the venture is known,
will rely on a constellation of low-orbiting satellites to deliver services.
It will sell mostly to businesses first, although AOL says residential
customers may be added later.
"BIG DRAWBACK. The companies are vague about their plans and haven't decided
on the cost to customers of the new DirecTV service. But William F. Kidd, an
analyst with C.E. Unterberg Towbin, says that he expects the initial service
to cost $300 to $400 a month fo the set-top box plus $20 a month on top of
the DirecTV fee.
"Hughes likes to point out that its service can reach virtually anywhere in
the country, so customers don't have to wait for a cable or phone company to
upgrade wires. But so far, that has not outweighed the drawback to
satellite-based Internet service: Subsribers who want to send e-mail must
use a phone or two-way cable line. That's a disadvantage in areas where
cable is already offering interactive TV. Analyst John Bernoff of Forrester
Research Inc. says cable's two-way hookup will make it the ultimate TV
victor. He predicts that by 2005, cable will account for 78% of the 24.8
million interactive-TV users. In other words, AOL may have to cut more deals
as it tries to get its service onto a broadband path."
(Which brings us back to the beginning - what's the new deal going to be?)
Geege