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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Lotozo who wrote (14597)	8/16/1999 10:58:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Bill, RCN continues to pull fiber widening their reach, adding homes passed and new acquisitions as we speak. Through their own cable facilities and their recently acquired ISPs (Erols, JavaNet, Interport and a few others, mostly dialups) they offer Internet access in every conceivable way: Cable Modem, Dialup, ISDN, and DSL (dsl, in the enterprise space, if nowhere else). Not sure if they have a wireless play, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. "How do you think RCN Corp.'s topology will holdup over time. It shouldn't have all the downfall of the legacy cable systems but is RCN's setup good for future directions of the internet and how does it compare to @Home." For starters, the most important distinction is that ATHM is not a facilities based cable operator, and RCN is... among other things. But to compare RCN to TCI, or to Comcast, which is what I think you mean, the following are a few of my observations. I can't make a coherent image out of RCN because they are all over the map in many ways. They own a bunch of players in both 'net access, and in construction, and a good part of their telephony offerings accomplished by reselling ILEC dial tone services. [In contrast, TCI/Comcast are, and will continue to leverage their cable lines for voice services.] These realities aren't all bad, but at the same time they don't lend themselves to an easy comparison towards an answer to your question. Add to this that they are part-owned by LVLT, the last time I looked. I tend to think of RCN as a company focused on penetration at the service layer, and they are agnostic to the technologies they employ in order to get there. Maybe someone else can paint a clearer picture of their mission. I can't, anymore. They appear to be all over the map, both facilities-wise, and strategically, from what I can tell. On the other hand, they don't appear to be locking themselves into any kind of proprietary corner (like, potentially, ATHM is doing??), from what I can tell, since most of their 'net activity is open Internet stuff (their POPs are attached to the open Internet by way of normal everyday peering over IP routes), which obviates the need for connecting gateways to the open 'net. Comments and corrections welcome. Regards, Frank Coluccio