Re: Update on AT&T Stats- HFC and Cable Telephony
Thread- Just a few comments clipped from an article. I don't know how accurate they are. I'm hoping to be able to cross-check with other sources. The 75% upgrade to HFC by year end seems optimistic. And I can't recall if the cable telephony figures are accurate...but I think they are from what I recall, Tellabs and Antec have said. The 30% sign-up rate is phenomenal if accurate. I don't believe T expected anything near this on average. -MikeM(From Florida)
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One bright spot in AT&T's current consumer product mix is its broadband services, Grubman wrote. The company said it expects to post 12% to 14% growth in the cable business this year. With 400,000 cable telephony subscribers, the company has been ramping this business ahead of plan. April installation rates were 13 times the December number.
In some markets, the company is signing up 30% of the homes passed by the service, with less than 1% attrition. Capital costs are dropping more than expected too, with an end to the largest expenditures in sight; 62% of AT&T's plant is upgraded for cable-telephony service, with 75% expected to be complete by the end of 2000.
What's more, the company is installing 50% more cable modems than in the fourth quarter, having added 91,000 customers in the first quarter, compared to 78,000 in the fourth quarter of 1999. In the meantime, the company has strengthened its ties to Excite@Home, and is working to put in place a broadband deal with Time Warner, which is the largest shareholder of the Road Runner broadband service.
Media One, the cable company that AT&T is acquiring, is another large shareholder of Road Runner. The FCC has approved the acquisition, and while the final terms of the deal haven't been determined, it's possible that AT&T won't have to sell Media One's Road Runner stake to satisfy antitrust regulators.
....Don't expect AT&T's massive transformation to happen overnight. The company currently pays about $2 billion a quarter in interest expense stemming from the cost of acquiring its enormous cable plant. But with CEO Michael Armstrong at the helm, the S.S. Mr. T is slowly, but surely changing course, and analysts believe that for long-term investors, the ship will surely come in. |
