John, good comment. AOL does not need to own the pipe, it only needs access to the pipe. T needs the pipe, not so much for internet traffic, but for their bread and butter, telephone traffic. T has been blocked from local phone access, and this is their entry back into the game, by routing telephone calls through cable. So what makes sense, from my viewpoint, is for T to go ahead and control the pipes, begin competing with the local and regional phone companies by routing telephone traffic through cable, and get in on the convergence of telephone, internet, and video. As far as internet traffic, they will have ATHM through their TCI connection, but with the slow rollout of cable I just don't see the ISP business as being of major concern to them right now. I think they would be more than willing to enter into a partnership with AOL to provide content and to play off AOL's 17M subs and 50M+ eyeballs.
JMHO |
