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To: Ally who wrote (10070)	2/28/2001 9:32:27 AM
From: Ally	Respond to of 15615

Tests Prove Fiber Optics Better than Satellites for Real-Time Trans-Pacific HDTV Broadcasts Fiber optic systems give broadcasters a video transmission medium that is less-expensive, more reliable, and higher quality than satellites -- Commercial video transmission service to be launched March 1, 2001 TOKYO, Feb. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Asia Global Crossing and its affiliate Global Access Ltd. announced today that they have successfully transmitted uncompressed HDTV and SDTV video between Japan and the U.S. using an STM-4C (622Mbps) on Pacific Crossing, demonstrating for the first time that fiber optic cable is a less expensive, more reliable, higher quality alternative to satellites for real-time video transmission. Asia Global Crossing expects to begin offering commercial video transmission services March 1, 2001. Currently, satellites are the most common medium used to transmit live video signals across the Pacific, primarily because a satellite's footprint allows for ``one-to-many'' distribution -- that is, a satellite can transmit data directly to receivers within a large geographical area. However, satellites can only transmit a limited amount of data. Typical standard-definition television (SDTV) signals require a 270Mbps data rate to achieve broadcast-quality output. But since a satellite's capacity is limited, SDTV video signals are commonly compressed to 45Mbps for transmission, which diminishes picture quality. biz.yahoo.com

To: Ally who wrote (10070)	2/28/2001 9:33:21 AM
From: jopawa	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15615

Wrong! Dispatches from the Front The Looming Threat of Deflation By James J. Cramer 2/28/01 8:44 AM ET URL: thestreet.com Click here for the latest from James J. Cramer. Oh man, inflation! You've got me really worried about it now. I am shaking from it. Yeah, the gold bugs got me all juiced about it. Natural gas hounds have me all worried. Cold rolled steel fans have me seeing inflation everywhere I look. Oh, yeah, inflation, that's the ticket. Wrong! Of all of the stupid, harebrained, no-account, nothing worries I have seen, it is the belief that the economy is about to overheat if the Fed does any more to stimulate it. What a pile of hogwash. I want to point you to two stories on our site that will explain why deflation, not inflation, is on my mind, and why we can bet that there will be no turn in stocks prices if the Fed doesn't start focusing on what is really going on with the economy. The first story is by Peter Eavis. If you don't know Eavis' work by now, you are missing the kind of work that Alan Abelson did before he became a mean old crank filled with contempt for the long side and anyone who makes money. Eavis is reasoned. He relies on some of the bears out there, notably the overly-bearish Charles Peabody (instead of the reasoned Tom Brown, I would add) and today I see he invokes the bears' best friend, Carol Levenson, a top-notch analyst if you are in a recessionary environment. Bears can be impeccable sources in bad times like, well, now! Eavis has been flagging stories about Xerox (XRX:NYSE) and Lucent (LU:NYSE) and today he flags Motorola(MOT:NYSE). All three of these companies could have problems with debt repayment, although people are only worried about Xerox and Lucent. The second story is by the always-reasoned Brett Fromson, and it has to do with a fully-funded company named Level Three (LVLT:Nasdaq) that is raising $3 billion because it is not fully funded. No, you did not read that sentence wrong. That's the way it is. What do these stories have to do with deflation? Simple; if you take all of this telco and telco-related debt, you are talking about a giant sum of money, maybe a sum that would equal the squashing of all of the savings and loan debt that we had in the late 1980s. Maybe more. All of the money is interconnected. If Lucent doesn't get its money, Winstar (WCII:Nasdaq) doesn't get its money. If Level Three doesn't get its money, Cisco(CSCO:Nasdaq) might not get its money. I could spin this a million different ways, because, frankly, the companies have done the same. (Anyone on the Winstar call yesterday would understand how interconnected things are. Anyone reading any of the capital expenditure stories out there knows how interconnected things are. Anyone who saw the WorldCom(WCOM:Nasdaq) debt downgrade Tuesday has to be thinking this, too.) When all of this debt was created, it was highly inflationary. High-coupon debt rushing a build-out of 14 different companies full-speed-ahead regardless of costs? That's the definition of inflation. What's the definition of deflation? The collapse of that edifice. When you lend someone $100 and they come back with $30 or even $20 -- no, $0 dollars -- that's what I call deflation. So does the Fed. The crunching of debt is hugely deflationary. When you get this debt-crunching (that I now think is a foregone conclusion because these indebted phone companies don't have enough business), you are going to have a deflationary mess on your hand as capital is simply vaporized. Now, take that capital vaporization and layer it on the capital vaporization in the Nasdaq and you have two of the most potent deflationary trends I have ever seen. Heck, they overwhelm the meaning of cold rolled steel and nat gas and the price of coal. They make a mockery of such concerns. Yet some of these knucklehead Fed folks act as if everything is just hunky-dory and others are so worried about inflation that they got us into this fix already by insisting on using dum-dum bullets when they shot the Naxx last year with six rate hikes. Then they dawdled in November and December as the Ciscos of the world saw business fall off a cliff. Their next act? To let the deflationary spiral play out before they save us. Stop worrying about inflation; deflation is the enemy. And it is at the gates. Right now. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James J. Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column to jjcletters@thestreet.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------