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Strategies & Market Trends : ahhaha's ahs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ahhaha who wrote (250)	10/14/2000 12:55:42 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24758

no valid profit model under the FTC stipulations for the merger I don't know what you mean by this statement, could you please explain why the FTC would be concerned about a "valid profit model".

To: ahhaha who wrote (250)	10/14/2000 3:25:40 PM
From: FR1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24758

Do you think that it may be the case that the FTC and AOL are simply doing a last minute war dance over terms? AOL may have a strong position. The FTC thinks they are going to stop AOL/TWX from hurting the public by demanding open access on equal financial terms for all ISPs. This is kind of the same problem that occurred with ATHM. When Portland was a hot topic, Portland City said that all ISPs should be allowed to have the same financial contract with T that ATHM has with T. The problem with this reasoning is that this means all the ISPs must turn a sizeable amount of their stock over to T because that is part of the payment beneift that T has with ATHM. So somewhere down the line this would have had to be expressed in dollars (and T would come up with a big $ figure). Fortunately, T never had to do this. IMHO, AOL has shown their strategy. They will fight but eventually accept terms of the FTC. So all ISPs (including AOL) get treated equally. Then AOL will demand an enormous sums for access, including a % of all profits made using their pipes. The FTC can't do anything unless they want to regulate prices (which would grind the whole system to a halt because it would become a government business). AOL has already demonstrated this by telling some ISPs what they will demand and it involved a % of profits plus traffic charges. T has already, very quietly, said that they agree with the AOL idea and may start charging a % of profits made using their pipe sometime next year.

To: ahhaha who wrote (250)	10/16/2000 1:23:35 PM
From: KailuaBoy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24758

If the FTC blocks the AOL - TWX merger which looks unavoidable since there is no valid profit model under the FTC stipulations for the merger, AOL won't have a X-band strategy. If the merger falls apart AOL is left with no X-band strategy and has lost a year in attempting to get one. What is AOL's X-band strategy if the merger does go through? It can't simply just be X-band in TWX footprint. Then it's in Att's interest to push to spin off Excite as a common BB ISP and redefine @Home. The re-definiton of @Home would follow a line of facilitator which I have described in detail. AOL would be the largest client of the new @home. Excite@Home would do us all a favor if they proactively went after this change. It will happen or ATHM will deserve the hat-sized stock price. What would be unfortunate is if ATHM slowly came to this realization and didn't have the cajones to change course in a decisive manner. I can see a slow half-hearted shift to facility. That would be the hamster way of running things. I wouldn't mind ATHM being AOL's X-band enabler. It would be nice to hear all the other ISPs scrambling to join or find an alternative. KB