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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc
ATHM 20.73-1.0%Feb 4 3:59 PM EST

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To: Jing Qian who wrote (6126)3/9/1999 7:47:00 PM
From: JakeSki  Read Replies (1) of 29970
 
Rolling out @Home service is a lot more difficult than AOL.
1) TCI must upgrade the plant.
2) TCI must upgrade the cable to leads to your neighborhood.
3) TCI must dispatch 2 technicians to every household to install.
4) And the installation sometimes is not straight forward. In my case it took them 3.5 hours and 2 phone calls to their lead tech for help.
In 96, all AOL had to handle is 1), not 2,3,4.


Yup. All these things are true. However:
1) I don't know if TCI was going to do this anyway
2) I think TCI was upgrading cable to support Digital Cable
3,4) This is true, they do have to dispatch techs. But once it is installed (at least in my case) it has been very reliable. A lot of AOL's complaints had to do with post-setup issues like busy signals, etc. So far, once ATHM is working it seems to be pretty stable. I think the were smart to use tech's. A little money spent on the front end probably prevents hours of tech support time and pissed of customers. And since they are charging for it ($150 for 2 techs and a working system at the end of the day is probably worth it to many people) they are probably *making money* on the install. Especially if most go smooth.

-- George

-- Jake
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