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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (22759)	5/30/2000 9:06:00 PM
From: FR1	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Frank, as far as the investment toward FTTH is concerned, do you feel the resources should be put there rather than than toward getting as many worldwide subs as possible? You are much more familiar with the technology than me so maybe you can fill me in on how much a FTTH campaign would drain the bank account. It seems to me that going the last mile in fiber would be very expensive and the drain on capital would slow the sub growth. One theory is to get as many BB customers as possible first and then upgrade them later. The idea is that once a BB customer is captured it is difficult to take them away. There is also the matter of the hardware. (A) FTTH is more expensive today than it will be tomorrow and (B) If we pay to get FTTH today, we have to expect that the user will be standing there with a clunky old computer. Of course, the counter argument is equally strong: 1) We won't be standing there tomorrow if we don't have some plan for FTTH now. 2) You will have to redo all the wire you lay in the last mile if you don't use fiber the first time. *********************************** OT except it kind of bothers Excite: Did you notice the AOL-GTW move today? dailynews.yahoo.com IMHO, AOL has always fought for a captive audience. If you are a dial up, they capture your eyeballs and hang on for dear life. They want to capture everyone for life. Soon AOL will have a chance to get people to buy a very cheap Gateway device that only connects to the internet. Of course, it will default (or maybe only) connect to the internet through AOL and be optimized to use the AOL browser. You can use IE but perhaps there will be some difficulty using IE. After all the MSFT OS (and all the attendent .dll files) will be missing. Do you think AOL wants to have the people that buy the macine use AOL for most of their basic needs - word processing, spreadsheets, etc.? Since the device only connects to the internet, they have a captive audience and there would sure be a demand for it. Of course, the services will be free - maybe you would be using the AOL version of LINUX word processor and AOL/LINUX spreadsheet based, of course, on the AOL internet server. Free storage at AOL too (it is part of your monthly fee)! How about finance? AOL can do that too! Do we see a train coming? Is AOL stealing some of Oracle's thunder? Maybe none of this is true but Steve is not one to play give away or suddenly decide to be a box maker. Why didn't Oracle team up with someone and do this? It was their grand idea! Maybe we will see some copy cats. Oracle/CPQ or IBM/DELL or Apple/Apple. Anybody need a ISP? We got one! Let's make a deal!