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Technology Stocks : COM21 (CMTO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Laubach who wrote (1114)	9/28/1999 3:56:00 PM
From: nghi vu	Respond to of 2347

thank you Mark for a detail post(eom)

To: Mark Laubach who wrote (1114)	9/28/1999 4:04:00 PM
From: Charlie Smith	Respond to of 2347

Mark: Also, twice TERN gave out warrants for stock as part of its cable modem deals. First with Shaw (as documented in TERN's S-1) and then again with Rogers (as told not too long ago in the press). This is a significant portion of Canada (and each are members of CableLabs). What do warrants do? Well, the operator gets to buy shares of TERN stock, at say $1 each (or other amount) essentially for every cable modem it buys. Given the increase in TERN's stock value, Shaw and Rogers have likely been able to significantly fund portions of their operations and upgrades. Essentially the same thing SUNW did with Ancor Communications. If SUNW generates $100 million in business for Ancor, it will get warrants to purchase 1.5 million shares of Ancor stock at $7.30 per share. As the big established customer, I drive your (the supplier's) stock up with a big order and participate on the back end. The more business I give you, the more money I make. Perpetual motion. Thanks for the background on S-CDMA, BTW. Charlie

To: Mark Laubach who wrote (1114)	9/28/1999 4:18:00 PM
From: Happy Harry	Respond to of 2347

Mark, thank you very much for the information and clarification. I may never totally understand the inner tech but your explanation of the business ramifications and games were well outlined and convincing.

To: Mark Laubach who wrote (1114)	9/28/1999 4:52:00 PM
From: Srinivasan Balasubramanian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2347

Mark, thanks for an enlightening post. As a shareholder I am extremely bewildered by the street's ignorance of the value of Com21. I am increasingly of the opinion that Com21 should explore strategic alternatives. The recent Motorola deal with AT&T reinforces my opinion, the big players can easily influence the market to their advantage. Can't help wondering what G Gilder would think of your opinion on S-CDMA? rgds Srini

To: Mark Laubach who wrote (1114)	9/28/1999 8:31:00 PM
From: pat mudge	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2347

sedar.com Third quarter and year-to-date net income includes after tax gains on sales of @Home and Terayon shares of $15.6 million ($0.19 per share) and $53.8 million ($0.65 per share) respectively. The Company plans, depending on market conditions, to continue to monetize its investments in @Home, Terayon and TCI Music in the fourth quarter with a view to reducing short and long term bank indebtedness. Total debt to cash flow ratio at May 31, 1999 was 4.22 to 1 based on annualized third quarter results. On June 2, 1999, the Company completed the sale of 4 million Class B shares at $65 per share. The net proceeds of $250 million were used to pay bank indebtedness and reduce the debt to cash flow to 3.53 to 1. Is there any way to find out what Shaw's representation is on the CableLabs executive committee? Clearly, Shaw and Rogers have much to gain by TERN's stock being up. In the words of a New York cabbie, "This not rocket science. . ." Pat

To: Mark Laubach who wrote (1114)	9/29/1999 12:49:00 AM
From: JoeWhoa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2347

Mark - thanks for the info. It sounds like CMTO's IR dept. could learn a thing or two from TERN's. The warrants serve as an incentive to the operators to purchase TERN's modem over CMTO's if all other factors were considered to be equal. This is a clever marketing scheme where an operators ownership of a vendor's stock can't help but give them a vested interest in it's long term success. A technical question: Setting aside the advantages that spread-spectrum gives regarding immunity from narrow band interferors, does Tern's S-CDMA provide for transmit power level control like the cell-phone CDMA? I believe this is what gives CDMA a significantly higher user capacity where within a cell, the base station controls user transmit levels, therefore seeing similar levels from the guy on the edge of the cell as from the guy right under the tower. Does this advantage translate into the cable domain where the propagation loss from a guy 10 miles down the cable is leveled with the guy next door to increase user capacity? Or do the distribution amplifiers serve to keep the dynamic range effectively centered?

To: Mark Laubach who wrote (1114)	9/29/1999 8:01:00 PM
From: cfoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2347

Re: Your message regarding TERN, I am not clear if I am understanding what you are saying. Is it that TERN's approach is not really effective or not effective enough to justify the support it is getting? Or are you saying that other approaches are just as effective? Or that noise is not a serious problem for 2-way cable? I do understand that you believe that a customer receiving stock in a supplier may color the customer's view of the supplier's product. A valid point. Looking forward to your response.

To: Mark Laubach who wrote (1114)	10/3/1999 1:18:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2347

Mark, that was truly an enjoyable read. Thanks for the clarifications as you see them. Tell me, if you would, has there ever been a performance bake-off between TERN and CMTO that you are aware of? In such a bake-off where they might have been tested under similar controlled conditions to see how each held up to varying degrees of channel degradation under changing load conditions, or changing number of users? That would be most interesting to see take place, I would think. Regards, Frank Coluccio