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

To: M. Frank Greiffenstein who wrote (27515)	4/3/2001 8:30:47 PM
From: E. Davies	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

I just finished listening to the presentation made at the tech conference. In it they still touted the self-install kits and how much it was going to save on install costs. Then he said they were available in Comcast (I thought it was Cox) regions primarily at Radio Shack. Big cost savings. One MSO. at basically one small local store. Hmmmm. This does not compute. Something smells. If it works why is it selling in only one MSO territory? If it doesn't why are they selling it at all? Remember that my point of view on self install was that if they didn't have it they would not be able to continue exponential growth because of the cost to the MSO's to hire installers. At the conference a subscriber count of "well over" 5 million by 2002 was mentioned. In other words- flat growth. Why? Because the MSO's are watching expenses. Ah's point of view was that self-install would not work- that truck rolls were a necessity for the stability of the network. While he may (or may not) be right, the facts are not terribly clear. I can say that all my installer did was use a voltmeter to measure signal strength at the outlet. He never even tried to look at the wiring. Just a completely non-scientific experiment on that topic: I tried messing with my cable connections- hooking up without filters, using cheap wiring & connectors etc. It continued to work fine for me anyway and more importantly continued to work for my next door neighbors. I did some even more severe experiments (like not connecting the grounding shield or grounding the signal wire) that ruined my service, but the neighbors didn't notice any difference. (Dont tell my cable operator- k?) Eric