@Home picks ATT to partner on new
networking
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Jan 6 (Reuters) - @Home Corp.
(Nasdaq:ATHM - news), the largest provider of high-speed
Internet services to homes, stunned many businesses vying for a
piece of the fast-growing online industry when it announced
Tuesday it had selected ATT (NYSE:T - news) to help it extend
its network nationwide.
@Home said it selected ATT after a competitive bidding process to help it build a nationwide
''Internet protocol network'' using 15,000 miles of the telecom group's high-speed fiber optic lines.
The value of the deal was not disclosed.
While the agreement will help @Home extend its services beyond the San Francisco Bay Area, the
deal was viewed as equally important for ATT, which won the contract over a group of newer long
distance businesses that have made a lot of noise about their ability to provide the wiring to link the
world to the Internet.
''We can't publicly state who was up for the bids,'' said Matt Wolfrom, a spokesman for @Home.
But he said ATT had been the ''dark horse candidate'' and its selection had come as a surprise
even to many people inside the company.
When it came to reviewing the bids, it found some of the companies that have most aggressively
promoted their services were unable to deliver.
''ATT already had a network in place,'' said Wolfrom. ''A lot of the next generation companies
were still building theirs.''
The New York Times reported other bidders for the deal included Qwest Communications
International Inc. (Nasdaq:QWST - news), Level 3 Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:LVLT - news),
Frontier Corp. (NYSE:FRO - news), Williams Communications and IXC Communications Inc.
(Nasdaq:IIXC - news).
''ATT under (Chairman) Michael Armstrong has gotten very serious about being a major wholesale
supplier,'' said Milo Medi, Chief Technology Officer of @Home.
@Home, which offers its high-speed Internet services primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, had
more than 200,000 customers at the end of 1988 and is expected to reach one million in 1999.
Although it delivers its services into homes on high-speed cable lines, it uses long distance lines as a
''backbone'' to move data to local cable operators.
Medi said the deal with ATT will make its backbone, ''if not the fastest certainly one of the fastest
in the U.S.'' |
