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To: David Nelson who wrote (21295)	4/21/2000 2:22:00 PM
From: gpowell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

In San Diego there is a DSL war going on among providers. It's interesting because most of them simply resell Pac Bell's service. With cable, so far, this is not the case since the cable cos. still have an exclusive on the wires (not for long). When cable is deregulated like the phone cos., the story will change. You will be able to shop price on cable just like you can now with DSL. Just something to chew on! These series of statements erode your thesis. If in a deregulated environment only the RBOCs are making money, then by analogy, only the owners of the network will make money in a deregulated cable environment. It appears you do not have a clear idea about the physical structure of ATHM's network and its relationship to the MSO's last mile infrastructure. I suggest you do some research before you provide any further guidance to ATHM. ATHM is a lousy content provider, but they do own a nationwide broadband network. You suggest they should become a better content provider. This idea has been thoroughly discussed on this thread for over 2 years. The consensus opinion is that it's a bad idea. An alternative idea, which seems to have withstood the criticism of many, is for ATHM to become experts at facility. In other words to directly connect content providers to their backbone. The CC indicates they may be moving in this direction. ATHM should provide the means to deliver content in a robust manner. Thus, content providers win because they get some measure of QOS and end users win because they do not have to cross the Internet peering points to get to content. The peering points are the bottleneck of the Internet, and as BB subscriptions rise this will become worse. Everyone, who has studied the problem, knows this to be true. Why compete for the fickle attention of the public, when you can help others do it. You win when they win, and you win when their competitors win.

To: David Nelson who wrote (21295)	4/21/2000 3:28:00 PM
From: FR1	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

In your list of things about AOL, I think one item was missed: As you mentioned, AOL wants to send entertainment over the internet. You can talk about DSL and wireless but everybody knows that in the end you have to be on fiber going to the home because the bandwidth is so much greater than anything else. Where is AOL going to get this? AOL is part owner of roadrunner but T, after the merger, will own 30% of roadrunner too. AOL owns zero of ATHM. ATHM and roadrunner together control almost all the cable internet traffic in north america. This means that somehow AOL has to come to terms with T. It is perfect fit because T does not want in showbusiness and AOL does not want to be a engineer. I see ATHM moving all its resources toward the hardware end of things. That is what the CC was all about (good news). Somehow, they will figure a way to work with AOL after all the mergers get approved.