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To: nohalo who wrote (29448)	8/14/1999 11:05:00 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

AT&T must deal with tangled Web strategy it wove Wall Street Journal Saturday, August 14, 1999 AT&T Corp.'s race to wire America with fast Internet service over cable lines is quickly turning into the Web's most complicated business deal. AT&T is spending $120 billion to buy cable TV lines, in large part to offer speedy Web hookups. But it faces a predicament that has the company in high-stakes, unresolved talks with some of the Web's biggest players: Just what is going to pop up on the computer screen at the other end of those cable lines? Behind the battle over that prime electronic real estate is an unusual set of legal hamstrings AT&T acquired when it bought Tele-Communications Inc. One choice that some have suggested is for AT&T to offer a link to America Online Inc., the nation's biggest Internet service with 18 million subscribers. But right now AT&T has other relationships that preclude such a deal. Moreover, AT&T and AOL have long been at an impasse over how such a deal would work. AOL wants to control customers' accounts, programming the first screen they see and handling billing and service. That's the approach that has built AOL into a juggernaut, with a gusher of revenue from customers and marketers eager to pitch AOL users. AT&T at some point might consider a deal to give AOL access to its cable lines, but the company is adamant that those customers remain AT&T customers. The rancor between the two companies has grown considerably as AOL wages a city-by-city fight against AT&T. AOL's lobbying pitch: AT&T should let AOL run its business over AT&T cable lines, in the name of ''open access.'' Meanwhile, AT&T finds itself in an exceedingly complex relationship with Excite At Home Corp. When AT&T bought the cable giant Tele-Communications Inc. in March, it inherited a big minority stake in At Home, a company building Web connections via cable lines. It also inherited a contract making At Home the exclusive online service for AT&T's cable customers through 2002. Then, in May, At Home merged with Excite Inc., provider of a Web portal ranked No. 8 among the most popular Internet sites. Suddenly AT&T was in bed not only with the supplier of a Web pipeline but also with a big supplier of Web content. Not only that, At Home's complex board structure means that AT&T and its cable partners must agree on major decisions. Getting all the cable rivals to agree isn't easy. ''We are made up of companies with competing and cooperative relationships, so it is going to be a much harder job to deal with all the issues facing us,'' said Excite At Home President George Bell, speaking recently of the unusual makeup of the board, on which he also serves. So for now, AT&T finds itself in the awkward position of not having complete control over just what customers will see on its system. At Home management obviously has an interest in seeing the Excite screen pop up when customers connect to the Web. Under the terms of At Home's agreements with its cable partners, AT&T can't cut side deals with other national Internet players, such as AOL and Yahoo Inc. Those types of talks are the domain of Excite At Home, which is free to negotiate with anyone on behalf of all its cable owners. As AT&T and Excite At Home thrash out these matters in current talks about strategic direction, the issues are labyrinthine. ''Do you remember that game Spock played on 'Star Trek'?'' says one executive close to the situation, referring to a perplexing, multilevel board game. ''Multiply that times 100 and you'll have an idea of what we are working out.'' The stakes in how the relationship with AT&T develops are huge for Excite At Home, since its success rises and falls on how it gets along with its cable partners. In order to grow, the company depends on cable systems to upgrade their lines in order to sell Internet service. If tensions become too great and cable companies lose interest in At Home, the service will lose ground to phone companies pushing a technology called digital subscriber lines, or DSL. In a statement issued this week, AT&T said: ''We respect and will honor our current contract with Excite At Home, including its exclusivity provisions.'' But the company also added that it is open to discussions with others about possible relationships when the contract expires. fROM ZAPMAN "The Internet is here to stay. No doubt about that. And there will be businesses, big businesses, that will find profitable business models to sustain their long-term health. Companies like AT&T (T: news, msgs), AOL (AOL: news, msgs), ExciteAtHome (ATHM: news, msgs) and others are positioning themselves as powerful new utilities. They'll be running Internet services for many, many years, generating enormous wealth." page1/ A-section \| local news \| sports \| business \| opinion \| living \| classified

To: nohalo who wrote (29448)	8/15/1999 2:19:00 PM
From: DOUG H	Respond to of 41369

>>> cover up our free ads with noxious substances such as ducttape, glue, leftover noodles and the like.>>>>>>>>>>>>>> DA, Let me reiterate(having once iterated, it becomes necessary to re-iterate), the integral part of our business model is to attract the cheapest,(read, least willing to spend money)people who are willing to put up with a terrible internet experience all in the name of saving $252 per year. We will then charge advertizers for the privelege of placing ads in prominent locations on the viewers screen. Our users then place duct tape, or as you have suggested glue or noodles over these ads. This is America, and nothing can stop a customer from affixing these objects to their screens. Besides, there are so many advertizers out there we can target and by the time we've churned them all we'll be rich!!!!! I appreciate your concerns. Competition is the mothers milk of the market place.