Re: News out of T / ANTC’s IR Notes
AT&T Broadband Registers 300,000 Digital Phone Customers
NEW YORK, Sept 6- AT&T Corp.'s AT&T Broadband unit said on Wednesday it has registered 300,000 customers for its digital phone service and is on track to reach its year-end goal of 500,000 to 650,000 users. In August, 40,000 new users signed up, the company said.
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Arthur and Thread- Thanks for your financially based projection notes. I have some further notes from a fundamental discussion I had with ANTC’s investor relations department. These are the main points we discussed. Please keep in mind, I’m paraphrasing my conversation. Do not take these notes for gospel. If anyone wants to invest on this information they should not. They should contact IR directly themselves to verify my personal notes.
And for any new investors to ANTC, keep in mind, this is a highly volatile stock. Anyone looking at a one year chart can clearly see this. It may not be for the faint-hearted. -MikeM(From Florida)
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Q: Apparently in Q100, ATT changed their spending plans to lean towards deployment of voice ports as opposed to CHTs. And this put downward pressure on ANTC margins. I believe it was said that doing the installs of the CHTs was a high margin business and this is why the shift to voice ports, at the expense of CHTs lowered margins. So now that we are into Q300, has ATT shifted back to ordering and deploying more CHTs from ANTC?
A: (My words) Yes there is a slight difference but the bigger problems towards the end of 1999 was more related to the battery issue. ANTC had to take a big hit on faulty product and now have put that past them. And yes, T has loaded up on CHTs in Q100 and are placing significant orders for voice ports. And yes they are expanding rollouts of CHTs once again. And keep in mind, ATT is not the only MSO rolling out circuit voice. See ANTC's PR concerning Insight Communications and then recall their public comments about Cox Communications in their Q200 earnings call.
Insight PR:http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=13232156Q2
Q200 CC Comments about Cox:http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=14077809
Q: And as you probably know, Harmonic(HLIT) had some issues with ATT upgrades of their distribution network. Primarily I understand that HLIT's problems were more digital content distribution issues (which is unrelated to ANTC but the market does not know this). But HLIT did comment ATT had slowed spending in the outside plant network also. Are you seeing any issues with ATT in the distribution part of the HFC network?
A: No. We understand Harmonic did try to make their problems an ATT-wide problem. We have not shared the problems they have seen.
Q: And as was mentioned in the second quarter conference call, Bob Stanzione mentioned that other cablecos beyond ATT were showing strength in their cable voice rollouts. Can you add a little color to how this is going in this current quarter? It appeared that Cox Communications was the one that Stanzione was impressed with as to their take rates on cable voice were very high. Are you seeing continuing strength with Cox Communications into Q300?
A: Yes. ANTC is seeing strong growth with Cox Communications and Cox is very serious about rolling out cable telephony.
Q. And finally, as you know, seems ATT is making headlines everyday about their alleged problems with meeting their local access goals for 2000. Specifically their goal of signing up 500,000 cable telephony subscribers. From the ANTC perspective, do you feel comfortable that ATT is going to be able to meet their goals?
A: Well the PR out of ATT says it all. They appear to be on target to hit their goal, and as you may have noticed, they have even upped the goal. |
