Unless I'm missing something, SFA will be a big winner of 1998.
I also follow SEAC and CCUR - IMO potential takeover candidates.
Here is the latest on SFA:
Sunday May 3, 1:04 pm Eastern Time
Cable TV forms group to advance Internet
By Judith Crosson
DENVER, May 3 (Reuters) - The cable television industry, hoping to fend off competition from telephone companies, has
formed a group to convince customers that high-speed cable is the best way to get on the Internet, executives said.
On Monday, a group of cable, software, hardware and content providers will use the National Cable Television
Association convention in Atlanta to announce they have formed the Cable Broadband Forum Inc.
The group wants to sell the public on using the Internet via a high-speed cable hook-up rather than the telephone line.
''With more pictures, video stream and audio stream being offered, there's a need for a high-speed access,'' said Tom
Cullen, vice president of Internet Services for MediaOne and chairman of the board of the new group.
The new service means more speed for users and more revenue for the cable industry, which has been upgrading its
systems.
Some 200,000 customers nationwide have signed up for high-speed cable and about 1,000 join each day. But with a goal of
having 1 million customers by the end of this year, the industry has to do better, industry sources say.
The Internet has taken off in the past few years. Some 50 million people use it and nearly 25 million households are
connected to the Internet, Cullen said.
While more users get on the Internet every day, the experience can be frustrating.
With current dial-up modems, a user can tie up a telephone line for lengthy minutes at a time just to pull down jazzy
graphics. It can take hours to download software.
To combat delays, regional telephone companies are also promising to deliver high-speed Internet access with their own
technology. So cable companies see a need to get their message out quickly.
''It's a battle for mind-share,'' said Robert Davenport, senior vice president and chief operating officer of TCI.NET, a unit
of cable giant Englewood, Colo.-based Tele-Communications Inc.
''The focus is to raise the level of awareness,'' Davenport said of the new non-profit organization, whose diverse
membership includes cable operators TCI, MediaOne, Cox and Time Warner Cable.
Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp. and Lucent Technologies Inc. also have joined the group, as well as Scientific-Atlanta
Inc.(SFA - news) and General Instrument Corp.(GIC - news)
''The phone companies have been pretty aggressive in talking about what they have in mind,'' Davenport said.
For about $40 extra a month, a cable customer can subscribe to the high-speed service.
Business customers are also a target, and the group wants to persuade businesses that cable is the superior delivery for
enterprise-wide business applications such as telecommuting through virtual private networks, so-called called corporate
Intranets and electronic commerce. (LU - news; COX - news; UMG - news; TCOMA - news; TWX - news; MSFT -
news; INTC - news)
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