Time Warner to Increase Road Runner Ownership and Manage Its Operations
biz.yahoo.com
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British Telecom Teams With AOL for Wireless Internet Services
London, Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- British Telecommunications Plc, the U.K.'s largest phone company, said it is teaming up with America Online Inc., to offer wireless Internet access.
Subscribers to Genie, the Internet access service owned by British Telecom, will be able to use AOL, the world's largest online service, through their mobile phones. Financial terms were not disclosed.
``AOL has some of the best content and British Telecom may have first mover advantage,'' said Mark James, an analyst at Nomura Securities in London. ``Users will want the AOL content and I expect most phone companies will sign up'' AOL.
In November, Genie announced a flat fee of 20 pounds ($30) a month for staying connected to the Web all the time. Phone companies in Europe are paying more than $200 billion to buy permits and build networks to carry faster wireless Internet services. In April five phone companies paid a total of 22.5 billion pounds to the U.K. government for rights to offer these services by 2002.
Genie said in an e-mailed statement it has more than 2.4 million users. More than 500 million text messages were sent over phone mobile networks in the U.K. in October.
Dec/18/2000 6:46 ET
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EW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Time Warner said on Monday that its cable division would take a bigger stake in the Road Runner high-speed Internet service and manage it operations.
The move comes as part of a restructuring deal hammered out between AT&T (T: news, chart) - a shareholder in the
Internet service -- and the U.S. Department of Justice in connection with its acquisition of MediaOne Group and should be completed by April 2001.
Time Warner said it would buy out Microsoft and Compaq interests' in Road Runner, whose assets will be distributed to Time Warner and AT&T Broadband.
The restructuring ends Road Runner's exclusivity agreement with Time Warner Cable, which was set to expire at the end of 2001. It also clears the way for Time Warner Cable to make its cable lines available to rival Internet service providers.
The company plans to take a one-time fourth quarter charge of $20 million to $40 million related to the restructuring.
Time Warner (TWX: news, chart), AT&T Broadband and Advance/Newhouse together own an 80 percent fully diluted interest in Road Runner. Microsoft Corp. (MSFT: news, chart) and Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ: news, chart) have
a combined 20 preferred interest in Road Runner.
Time Warner fell 97 cents to $71.75 in Instinet pre-market trading, as the company also said it was cutting estimates for growth in earnings before interest, taxes and amortization for full-year 2000 to 11 percent from 12 to 13 percent. See full story. []"http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/images/cbsmw_fin.gif" width=51>
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