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To: E. Davies who wrote (11535)	6/20/1999 3:09:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

You say cable needs critical mass to support itself. Cable is a technology. DSL is a technology. So DSL has to have critical mass to support itself. Is there any technology which doesn't need such critical mass? You have stated that if Att doesn't get preferential treatment they aren't going to achieve critical mass so cable will never be developed. If Att doesn't develop it others would be happy to do so. If Att didn't get preferential treatment they would have to develop cable anyway. Att has you over Att's profitability barrel. They have you herded into the fear syndrome with their stick and carrot routine. The funny thing is that Att's profitability strategy doesn't maximize earnings. Earnings are maximized when a company has an incentive to continually improve. That only occurs when a company has competition. This was the lesson that Ma Bell's demise demonstrated. Att is trying to protect short term profitability by installing a structure which will reduce potential long term return. It might be possible to get Armstrong to admit that is possible, but he would say "it will never happen as long as I'm chairman". Two years later the FCC starts regulating because there are no competitors and so the distribution profitability disappears. It wasn't Armstrong's fault, but the result is 100 channels carrying 50 ISPs with absolutely unreliable delivery. The concept evolved according to AOL philosophy of open access that ISPs compete, but the FCC created a circumstance where there was only one system held by Att. There was no competition in delivery only in that which was delivered. It has become a reincarnation of cable tv franchise government-public model of efficiency. The best technology loses more often than not? From what thread did that platitude come?