Okay. Re Charter/NTOP...
The following url appeared Friday or Saturday, and I saw it last Sunday afternoon (Seattle time).
newtelephony.com
I sent it to Sarah, with a well-written query, leaving the options open to her re what she could responsibly say. She immediately responded, saying what was open, what was closed, and what ntop couldn't lead us to believe per their fiduciary responsibility to all shareholders. So it was frank and forthright, with no intention to mislead, imo.
Charter and Net2Phone have a NonDisclosure Agreement (which we didn’t know before), and they are still working to the terms of that agreement, insofar as Sarah knows. She then protected the company, as she should.
Charter is looking into using Net2phone in its mid/small size markets. That’s all we know or will be told as of 2/8/04.
What Charter says below, is that it will meet state regulations, and that ntop and vonage aren't required to (yet). But Charter doesn't want to get caught up in that and lose a state license, so it will.
This is the url:
newtelephony.com
Charter Launches Cable VoIP
”Charter Communications Inc., the third largest cable operator in the United States with 6.6 million subscribers, has launched formally voice-over-IP services and plans to extend them to all of its serving areas.
……
VoIP with a Telco Attitude
Charter's approach to voice over IP stresses "toll" quality and traditional services. Barber says the company will not offer what he terms a "nonregulated" service, such as Vonage or Net2Phone do. In developing its primary-line service, Barber says, Charter was mindful of the state regulations that it has been operating under as a provider of TDM voice and will deploy a service that will meet those regulation in each state where it operates.” …”
Subject: RE: cable telephony
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 19:43:56 -0500
From: "Sarah Hofstetter" <sarah@net2phone.com>
To: "carreraspyder" <carreraspyder@yahoo.com>
i am not aware about any changes vis-a-vis our discussions with charter, which, of course, are under nda. charter has also publicly stated (and i am paraphrasing, so you can check with them) that they will be building their own voip solution for their major markets, and are looking to potentially outsource for some of their mid-sized and smaller markets (hence the slide about net2phone that u saw in banker presentations).
we have also stated very clearly that our existing projections do not take a charter deal into account. hope this is helpful,
Sarah Hofstetter
Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications
Net2Phone (NASDAQ: NTOP)
973-438-3838
sarah@net2phone.com
********8
Below is an email re what I think could be a sensible opinion re Charter/NTOP, posted to the ntop private forum, on Friday –
“…don't think the announcement of a signed contract with Cebridge will do much for the stock price, but the announcement of an MOU with Charter will have an immediate impact on the stock price. There is nothing I have seen that would rule out Charter but I am not banking on it. I think there are plenty of opportunities out there for NTOP without Charter but it would definitely be a great piece of news if it happened.” |
