Re: HSAC (and ATHM) Opinions
Frank,
Interesting what you think about HSAC vs CLRN. I suppose it comes from our differing points of view. I, strictly from an investor viewpoint. And you, from a much(!) more technically savvy viewpoint.
The way I see it, one companies revenue source is almost guaranteed. The other is speculation. One company has almost no competitors. The other hundreds. One is here and now. The other may be viable in five years or so.
Being a tech investor for close to fifteen years, I'm quite a skeptic when it comes to bleeding edge technology. I just see the claims about, "toll quality," IP voice as being overblown. I just don't think customers will ever accept those days when analog cell phone was somewhat popular and everyone disliked the quality. I can't see the consumer taking any backward steps with VoIP. I think it will be at least a five year time frame where the reliability of IP networks will allow true toll quality voice services.
As you may recall, even with a cable modem, there are lots of days where a dialup 56.6 kbps would beat my cable modem (And I don't think it has anything to do with shared resources). That is how bad it is. So I just don't see VoIP really being practical for uses, other than within a VPN, for years and years.
Now the way I look at HSAC and ATHM, it's almost like their revenue streams are guaranteed. The technology is now. They are locking out their competitors with exclusives.
Ironically, the most recent bouts between AOL and AT&T made it even clearer to me that there appears to be no way for Armstrong to get out of T's commitment to ATHM. ATHM has an exclusive on at least 60,000,000 homes that appears to be ironclad. And, as you may know, they are pushing their way into Europe's exciting cable market.
Albeit, at a market cap of $10 billion, ATHM is still a risky proposition from an investment standpoint. But much less so when it had a market cap of $23 billion.
HSAC is following a very similar path. Although I don't believe they have the ironclad legal contract as ATHM does, what HSAC has is almost as valuable. The backing of Paul Allen. So far I believe they have exclusives to at least 5,000,000 homes. But as you recall, Charter is rapidly becoming a cable giant (from all my previous posts). They are in the number four position of owning the last mile coaxial pipes into US homes. Paul Allen, being a 54% owner of HSAC, almost puts a lock on their target market that is just as strong as AT&T's legal commitment to ATHM.
Again, at a market cap of $2 billion HSAC is risky. But much less so than when it had a market cap of $3.2 billion.
Both ATHM and HSAC are almost on a parallel path that AOL took in the twisted copper pair dial-up world. IMVHO both ATHM and HSAC will come to dominate the broadband HFC world as much as AOL has dominated the dial-up world. But with the added advantage that AOL gave them a roadmap to follow. And the cable ISPs have a lot more bandwidth to do a lot more exciting things than AOL could ever do with dial-up speeds.
There are just so many uses and services for cable broadband that aren't even in anyone's dreams yet. And who will be the delivery vehicle for those services...I'm betting (key word: betting) ATHM and HSAC.
All just my FWIW take.
MikeM(From Florida) |
