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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 (6224)	1/11/2000 8:48:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Thanks for that roll-up Mike. Some good packaging of diverse events which seem to further suggest an old vision that the 'net will be assimilated in many ways by what was considered at one time as the tv idiom. With this kind of scale and the synergy that this merger suggests I'm sure that we'll see a downward pricing trend for that coveted last-mile fat-pipe at some point, as I infer one of your points to be. The greatest ally that this new entity has doesn't have a stock symbol associated with it. Instead, it's consumer interest and loyalty to the proven medium of today's tv and its heirs that audiences, as they evolve into interactive participants, will willingly move with. Albeit at a glacial pace, at first, despite the "tectonic shift" characterizations which have been stated about them "down the road," but the machine has been put in motion. AHhaha's reminder to me in the ATHM thread last night about how long these things will take to unfold was a sobering note that I needed to read, lest I, too, get too wrapped up in the hype component of this event, of which there is a great amount. But it is powerful stuff, nonetheless. Non-entertainment-allied 'net competitors for residential eyeballs will be hard pressed to compete with this new combination where their (now AOL's) fat pipes prevail. Which will force the debates going forward to other areas of contention where wannabes will cry "foul!" if they don't have similar advantages which they will claim as their entitlements, from their current focus on Open Access for Third Party ISPs to other iterations of "open x,y,z." Perhaps I should start with a,b,c, instead of x,y,z leaving enough room for growth. BTW, how did you like Case's sudden revelation and ensuing statements yesterday concerning his new approach to a competition driven marketplace as opposed to one that would be carved up through regulation? Eh? The guy has chutzpah, no? Regards, Frank Coluccio

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (6224)	1/11/2000 11:09:00 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Mike, Re: 100MM subscribers. This figure includes the 20MM AOLers, all magazine subscribers and RR subscribers (less than 1MM, AFAIK). So the figure was throw out as a measure of how influential the new AOL would be to the overall consciousness of America. Very influential overall. But the broadband aspect of it is miniscule in comparison today. I'm not certain that I would agree with the notion that prices will drop. I suspect that another way to view this would be that AOL would like to provide much greater bandwidth without lower monthly fees, and actually, I would suspect that AOL subsribers would be asked to re-up from their $22 monthly fee to perhaps double that for broadband connectivity. Maybe you were saying the same thing in a different way, but I do not see this like the telephony model, where voice will eventually be free, as John Chambers has suggested. AOL will never be a free service, if anything, it will become more and more of a 'pay per view' sort of product. Best, Ray