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Strategies & Market Trends : Cents and Sensibility - Kimberly and Friends' Consortium -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wes Stevens who wrote (29455)	11/17/1999 9:11:00 PM
From: Frederick Langford	Respond to of 108040

Absolutely still in KOREA. From ipoPros Premium information: KOREA THRUNET CO LTD (OTC:KOREA) SEOUL KOR Business Description: Internet/Multimedia/Online Provider of high-speed Internet services in Korea, with 90,693 end users as of September 30, 1999. Services are provided via cable modem to residential customers and small and medium-sized businesses **Comments: Increased from 12.00 - 14.00. This was a tough deal to get a handle on until one of our subscribers sent us a prospectus in digital form. As soon as we opened the file we liked the deal. It reminds me a lot of Pacific Internet which worked nicely. Underwriters: Lehman Brothers Bear Stearns CIBC World Markets Summary: We are the leading provider of high-speed Internet services in Korea, with 90,693 end users as of September 30, 1999. Our broadband Internet services are provided via cable modem to residential customers and small and medium-sized businesses in Korea and are marketed under the ‘‘ Thrunet Service'' brandname. Thrunet Service features ‘‘always-on'' Internet access at speeds up to 100 times faster than traditional dial-up Internet access, with compelling multimedia content ranging from on-demand music videos and Internet telephony to multimedia bulletin board and multimedia chatting services. We also provide facilities-based data communications services to more than 100 corporate customers in Korea, including several major telecommunications carriers such as SK Telecom Co., Ltd. and Shinsegi Telecomm Inc. Our goal is to build an efficient and versatile broadband service platform for our customers' communications, e-commerce, entertainment and information needs. We have formed a strategic alliance with Microsoft Corporation to jointly develop, implement and commercialize broadband technologies and services for the Korean market. Areas of planned cooperation with Microsoft include broadband portal co-branding, e-commerce applications and localization of a broad range of proprietary Microsoft content. Microsoft acquired 5.4% of our shares in September 1999. We have also granted Microsoft an option, exercisable until the fifth trading day following the closing of this offering, to purchase up to 4,525,714 additional shares of Thrunet. Our broadband Internet services network consists of a fiber optic backbone and a hybrid-fiber-coaxial cable network linking Thrunet Service end users to the fiber optic backbone. Our broadband Internet services network is designed to facilitate the efficient transmission of data-intensive multimedia content. We currently lease substantially all of our cable network and the bandwidth capacity for our fiber optic backbone from Korea Electric Power Corporation, referred to as ‘‘ KEPCO''. The cable network we lease from KEPCO is the only major cable network in Korea that currently permits the two-way communication necessary to achieve optimal Internet access speed. We primarily deliver Thrunet Service in cooperation with regional cable system operators. We pay system operators a percentage of the revenues we receive from customers in their service areas. Since we launched Thrunet Service in July 1998, we have signed exclusive agreements with 26 system operators which use KEPCO's cable network, covering a total of 2.8 million homes passed. The term ‘‘homes passed'' refers to the number of homes that potentially can be served by a cable system. We have also signed exclusive agreements with four system operators which use Korea Telecom's cable network. We are currently negotiating similar agreements with additional system operators. In areas not covered by KEPCO's cable network, we are building our own cable network to deliver Thrunet Service. We deliver data communications services to corporate customers over the more than 5,000 route miles of fiber optic cable we have built and our fiber optic backbone. Our data communications services primarily consist of the leasing of dedicated fiber optic lines over which our customers transmit voice and data. Data communications services accounted for most of our revenues in 1997 and 1998. We recently began offering Internet access services to large corporations under the ‘‘ Thrunet Alpha Service'' brandname. Thrunet Alpha Service customers are able to access the Internet via dedicated fiber optic lines directly connected to their buildings. Thrunet was formed in July 1996 by two of its principal shareholders, TriGem Computer, Inc. and KEPCO. TriGem manufactures personal computers, develops software and system integration products and owns a 28.5% interest in eMachines, Inc., a leading distributor of budget personal computers in the United States. Fred