This is good news. Telephony is thin margins and lots of headaches. By keeping broadband and telephony separate, the threat of subjugation to common carrier status is removed. The original FCC ruling protecting cable from such status would be retained, so ATHM wouldn't be thrown in with the copper low end.
The author makes a misleading statement, AT&T engineers will decide how its packet local loop should be built and managed to offer lifeline telephony, high-speed Internet access and interactive TV services. @Home had originally hoped to drive the deployment of these services by its cable affiliates. ATT isn't going to offer high speed Internet access. That contradicts the alleged report that, , we asked several AT&T executive(sic) about the impact on @Home. "We'll continue to carry them within our IP bandwidth," one replied. Then the author states @Home's wish to drive the deployment...by its cable affiliates. That isn't coherent. Drive deployment? ATHM has no control over what MSOs may want to show on their systems. Cox and TCI are almost competitors.
What does this have to do with ATHM? existing @Home affiliates, such as Cablevision, Comcast or Cox, would require a renegotiation of their current @Home revenue splits as a precondition of an AT&T telephony deal. Would AT&T sacrifice @Home to expand their telephone service footprint? Why should there be a re-negotiation of the revenue split? The MSO gets more money with telephony. What does that have to do with ATHM?
The author did make the constructive point. It draws in new affiliates, so in reality, there is no bad news here, but some good potential news in adding new subscriber bases --- a nice synergy. |
