AIT has been a very good investment for the past few years
and now AT&T is offering local service in Chicago so that will
be a very interesting battle to watch...we'll soon see whether
T's outlook is going to be any good in the near term.
Personally I think that T is going to go after one or more of the
locals--rumor has it that they're eyeing BLS and that's why they
started selling their LD overcapacity to BLS at such a low price:
both companies are refusing comment but the scuttlebutt is that
T is selling to BLS at under a penny per minute.
A few days ago the papers in California carried a story that T is
buying capacity from PAC's SONET network and, unlike the rest of
the country where T is building its own network, T is going to keep
leasing SONET from PAC--T's official explanation is that PAC is the
only local provider that has the expertise and technical advances
that it requires...but some think that T may also be eyeing PAC in
case the SBC merger falls through. (For those unfamiliar with the
term, SONET stands for Synchronous Optical Network which is the high-
speed digital hub that the telco's are increasing use as a digital
feeder.)
Rereading some of my posts, it sounds like I'm very negative on T as
an investment vehicle but that's not correct--I think that T will be
a good investment for those who have a very long time to wait. In the
near-term, though, I really do believe the entrenched local monopolies
(because for all practical purposes they're still monopolies and will
be for awhile yet) are a better investment, especially, as I said
before, SBC and, if the BEL merger goes through, Nynex should also be
a big winner. |
