<<What you see as negative for ATHM in the common carrier status and other anti-competitive war on wealth agendas, I see as beneficial>>
O.k., I need some help on that one. ATHM's revenues are derived by subscribers who access their network via the cable plant. In addition to the monthly fees, ATHM receives advertising dollars based on usage. Soon, they will get other ancillary (i.e. software sales/rentals) portal based revenue. How is it beneficial to ATHM if the cable operator must provide, for instance, a separate 6 Mhz channel for AOL high speed customers? The cable operator will, presumably, receive a cost based payment for that subscriber, but ATHM will receive neither a subscription fee nor advertising revenue. The only positive that I can see is the "rising tide raises all boats" theory, meaning that opening up cable plant to all comers results in an overall increased demand for broadband services. However, that's happening anyway with xDSL, satellite, MMDS etc.. Look at the Phoenix market as an example. I can't see that tenuous positive outweighing the obvious negative. So what am I missing? |
