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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (5672)	10/25/1999 3:29:00 PM
From: ynot	Respond to of 12823

symbian MOT NOK are eating CE alive so he needs captive CE users, quick regards, ynot :) ps subsriber cost irrelevant, paid for with funny money and UK calculations have to consider local call cost, i think

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (5672)	10/26/1999 1:13:00 AM
From: KW Wingman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Did not verify - but it could be that Gates did not buy 100% of the sub for $1608. He may have only paid for 30% of the sub which sounds to be about current going price. <it's $3 billion for a 30% stake in Telewest. I did the math and it means he's spending about $1,608 per subscriber. I don't get it? > Regards, Wingman

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (5672)	4/11/2000 11:27:00 AM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 12823

Re: MSO Powerhouse Microsoft Does it Again Thread- Yet another billion dollar investment by Bill Gates, assuming this deal goes through. Again, it proves the value of the cable pipe as a Last Mile solution. So MSFT has multi-billion dollar investments in the United States, Europe, and now is entering Asia. It's comforting to me because it clearly shows MSFT's confidence in the cable plant as being a viable broadband pipe. As Gates money goes, so generally goes upgrade spending. Sounds like an MSFT investment in a Japanese MSO might be analogous to AT&T's Mike Armstrong lighting a fire under the US incumbent LECs. In Japan the DOMINANT incumbent is NTT. -MikeM(From Florida) PS Before the trusty SI search engine loses these posts, here's a link to MSFT's past MSO Investments: Message 11279225 And here's MSFT's connection to Europe: Message 11696995 ********************** Microsoft Silent on Purchase of Japan Cable Stake SEATTLE, April 10- Microsoft Corp. on Monday refused to either confirm or deny a videotaped statement made by Chairman Bill Gates last week that the software giant had bought a 60 percent stake in Japan's No. 2 cable network. Microsoft spokeswoman Julie Pennington declined to comment on whether the company had bought the stake in Titus Communications Corp. from U.S. entertainment company MediaOne Group Inc. In a video news release sent to Reuters in Tokyo last week, Gates, appearing on a sofa and talking to the camera, said his company was taking over the MediaOne stake and that the deal would speed the roll-out of fast Internet service in Japan. Although Gates did not reveal financial details of the purchase, analysts said it could be worth $940 million (100 billion yen). Other backers of Titus include Japanese electronics firm Toshiba Corp. and trading house Itochu Corp. , which both have 20 percent stakes. A spokeswoman for Titus in Japan confirmed that MediaOne and Microsoft were in talks, but said a deal had not been finalized. Titus has more than 90,000 subscribers and notched up $48 million (5.1 billion yen) in revenues for its 1998 business year. It is No. 2 to Jupiter Telecommunications Co., 40 percent of which is owned by Liberty Media Corp., a subsidiary of U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T Corp, which is also buying MediaOne. The purchase of the stake would give Microsoft a toehold in the potentially lucrative Japanese Internet market. Although high fees charged by Japan's dominant telecoms carrier, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. are widely blamed for stifling Internet growth in the country, analysts say Microsoft's entry could jump-start cable access.** Cable Internet service allows users to surf the Web over cable television lines, bypassing telephone-based networks while delivering access at speeds up to 25 times faster than the quickest dial-up modems. Hoping to get its software into the next generation of cable television boxes that will also enable Internet services, the Redmond, Wash.-based software company has invested in cable technologies and companies, most notably AT&T. However, cable television service is not nearly as widespread in Japan as it is in the United States, with about 17 percent of homes using it, compared to more than 70 percent of American households.