As far as I know it doesn't vary although it is a function of the cable carrier's rate structure. Since there isn't much variance in the rate because of government forced price fixing(what the gov calls "free market"), the mean monthly rate would be $45 +/- $5.
I've cautioned about valuation; there are too many complexities involved, such as @Work (which may eventually generate more revenue than @Home), international penetration, the death of ISPs like AOL, the collapse of pseudo competitors like DSL and wireless, the developmental speed of true competitors like Road-Runner. You can imagine that the most sophisticated astute individuals are calculating and re-calculating all of the imaginable factors daily, because the potential is so large. All reflected in today's price, 20.
When you consider that Intel is increasing their direct investment (purchasing shares), MSFT is desperately looking to buy some cable influence, the lion share of cable companies are director deep in the stock, and the prospectus is thick as it would be if ATT was doing a 100 million share secondary, you gotta believe that this stuff is big time. It is the biggest technological mass development since the telephone, and when it gets rolling, bang, everyone will be cable hooked. ATHM is doing a great job of downplaying all of this. I am continually amazed that I seem to be the only one that is trumpeting this incredible development. It is so obvious that it is humorous. The public and Wall Street have the attitude of "you bid it up, I'll buy when it's safe", or DSL is more secure and stable(see today's Fool on ds.com), or Texas Instruments purchase of Amati (they know DSL is shaky, they just want the engineers). You might say that others trumpeted in previous years but the thing wasn't ready. Well, it's ready now and I'm very upset that even though TCI OC3-wired my building 1 year ago, I can't get the service yet. Sh--
So should you take the plunge? Can't help you there. I'm praying, "Oh God, please take it down so I can buy more". So, maybe God will answer my prayer, in which case, you should wait. But God also knows that my greed is unbounded and so may not cooperate. Do you think there are very many investors who are waiting for it to go down? After all Graham & Dodd say the company is worthless since it has no revenues. They also would say that about AOL two years ago. Rational expectations is the reality of modern valuation. The risk starts when these companies start bringing it to the bottom line. I don't need to tell you what happens if there is the slightest miscue. When they're trading on rational expectations, they're safe because there's no way to ding 'em! |
