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Technology Stocks : AT&T -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FR1 who wrote (2661)	7/18/1999 12:06:00 PM
From: CMS27	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4298

From a different perspective on this I believe a driver in the end will be convergence of media and data. Both Audio and Video will be a dominant part of the the ineternet. I'm sure everyone agrees with this. But how this relates to the pipe is the integration of interactive features with the audio and video. It has already been shown that you can have commercials in a TV show. For example, the actors clothing is itself an ad and you could shop for it while watching the show. Certainly a phone line could be tied to your TV and connectivity given there, but when the entertainment program itself contains the interactivity then the entertainment provider could legally control access to it as an intellectual property. So it becomes a matter of content not just connectivity. Of course AOL has a content argument as well, but I value content in terms of interactivity of traditional entertainment much higher and this is cables backyard. And really a enterntainment companies backyard, can anyone say DIS? Looks pretty cheap to me. One feature I am dying for is selactable cameras in sporting events. Where you can watch the standard broadcast but select one of several other cameras to view in a picture in picture type deal. Scott

To: FR1 who wrote (2661)	7/18/1999 1:45:00 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4298

ATT is also spending massively. I've seen their TV ads urging people to write their congessmen against the internet "monopoly". Use common sense here as the congressmen must. They cannot allow one company to monopolize both content and delivery (see movie business consent degree disallowing studios from owning the theatre chains) but they can allow one company to control one or the other, at least a majority of it. Therefore the worst I see for ATT is being forced to divest a portion of their cable holdings. Maybe they'll dump Portland and Florida on someone else (gg). Maybe they'll end up with 5-60% of the cable market instead of (what is it?) 80%? In any case I don't believe there will be a national law allowing full access for these reasons: ATT just paid hundreds of BILLIONS for that pipeline (to disallow freedom of useage for ATT would be to bankrupt them), also as I understand it there is only so much bandwidst to go around and they'll need a lot for such services as on-demand movies, telephony, internet, TV, interactives, audio and video, etc. Bottomline, ATT will be willing to make modest concessions but no more. And they can battle in the courts for years. Therefore it is in everyone's interest, especially ATT and congress, to come to a workable compromise which will not be that unfriendly to ATT. PS: If ATT becomes a toll-taker, they could charge a lot for those tolls making ISP's like AOL less attractive to subscribers. I get AOL for $20 a month but I am already looking at the possibility in the near future of getting that service for free. There is a reason Magellan is buying ATT and not AOL. AOL may have a few good years left but their future is more in doubt that ATT's IMHO. In any case I consider ATT an undervalued stock.