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To: GBarr who wrote (22660)	5/26/2000 2:17:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Respond to of 29970

I have become convinced by you and others here of the folly of such thinking and realize that it would have been much better to have long ago embraced "open access" and the business opportunities such an environment would bring. Yep. It's the strategy of taking a loss early or converting a perceived disadvantage into an advantage. The amazing thing is that by running forward to embrace such a "pro-people" attitude Att gets synergy and leverage. Att decided they needed to protect two cents and so they launched the lawsuit campaign. Misallocation of resources. The campaign has had a mixed success but the result is moot since the issue is that competitive access is manifest destiny. Att used this campaign as a retarding or disinformation tactic. It defuses, confuses, and dilutes the immediate perceived earnings impact, but that's all irrelevant. If you're going to be judged, then be judged for what you are and what you're doing. Instead, Att acts as though they want to be judged as an obstructionist. With respect to MediaOne, we are hampered by the private status of RR in that we don't know the underlying commitments amongst the parties. I believed whatever they are, the eminent domain status of their owners neutralizes them. The material effect will be that the owners will pay the various parties some appropriate "mental suffering" quantity of money. The DOJ consent degree (the details of which I would love to read if somebody has seen it somewhere) only has T and MediaOne as parties and hence cannot bind TWX and RR. But it sets a precedent that there is a domain under which all interests must co-equally operate, so that whatever Att must do wrt UMG, the other owners will have to emulate. In effect does this not force competitive access on TWX and the others? However, TWX has its own date with the DOJ real soon. In the end when all the dust settles, we may have a competitive access environment on MediaOne properties before 2002, That's why I used the term "ex post facto", and why I'm saying that there exists a qualified eminent domain here. It has been inadvertently generated by the DOJ decision. The DOJ is constrained by the constitution to deny anti-competitive measures. If the decision isn't extended to force TWX to imitate anything to which ATT is subjugated, then the DOJ decision isn't being equally applied. That's unconstitutional. either imposed by the DOJ or, more likely, as part of the divestiture since it may be the case that both ATT and AOL now want to void the exclusives as quickly as possible. Funny how that works. They both run away from the protection that they both sought from opposite positions!