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

To: GraceZ who wrote (29529)	12/1/2001 1:10:22 PM
From: JayPC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

More strange info, it appears the judge ordered @HOME to continue all services to Shaw Cable. So @HOME must be available to provide services to the only people that don't want it and wont use it! (see bolded) canada.com{05497C81-C3BC-4786-9C83-92969C0660D8} Rogers' clients bounced off Net Tens of thousands of Rogers Communications e-mail and high-speed Internet customers suffered service outages last night and hundreds of thousands could find their screens dark this morning, following a California bankruptcy court judgment allowing their service provider, Excite@Home Corp., to cut them off. Rogers has scrambled over the past few weeks to get all its personal and business customers on to its own Internet service but, as of yesterday, thousands of Rogers customers remained tied to @Home's service. Rogers' 422,000 customers who rely on the California-based service for their connection to the Internet could find themselves without service today unless Rogers seals a last-minute deal with Excite@Home following frantic negotiations overnight. Despite the ongoing talks with Excite@Home, about 10% of Rogers customers suffered service interruptions early last night and call centres were jammed. "It appears that Excite@Home has taken some scattered action across North America that is impacting the service of some Rogers customers who have Lancity modems," Rogers said in a statement. "Rogers is making every effort to restore service to these customers." Excite@Home, which filed for bankruptcy protection in September, is losing up to US$6-million a week, executives told a bankruptcy court hearing yesterday. Judge Thomas Carlson said Excite@Home, based in Redwood City, Calif., could reject its existing contracts with U.S. and Canadian cable companies as early as 3 a.m. EST today, when their contracts expire. The judge ruled the contracts had become "clearly burdensome" to @Home because providing the service cost more than its provider was able to recover from the cable companies. He was not swayed by arguments that he shouldn't close down the network because it would affect consumers including small businesses. "The end users may be affected by these proceedings but they are not parties to these proceedings," the judge said. "Bankruptcy typically causes much disruption all the time, leading to loss of jobs and services to communities." In a strange twist, he made one exception and said Excite@Home could not shut down service to Calgary-based Shaw Communications Inc. The judge reasoned that the Shaw contract was profitable to troubled @Home and should therefore be allowed to continue. "The irony is that Shaw is profitable [for @Home] because @Home is not performing under that contract," said Margot Micallef, general counsel for Shaw. In the summer, Shaw began pulling its customers off the @Home service and transferring them on to its own network for both e-mail and Internet access. At the same time, it stopped paying most of its royalties to @Home, but the service provider insists it is still owed that money. The two companies are now locked in breach of contract actions that have yet to be filed in court, said Peter Bissonnette, Shaw's president. Montreal-based Cogeco Cable Inc., which also had customers on the @Home service, switched them to its own e-mail service this fall. Cogeco is using Shaw's hardware for connecting customers to the Internet. Rogers has a contingency plan with an undisclosed company for Internet access and says it will make the switch as soon as possible if ongoing negotiations with Excite@Home are unsuccessful. "We have always been interested in an orderly transition period, said Alek Krstajic, senior vice- president, sales and marketing. "[But] if the ongoing negotiations with Excite are not successful, Rogers will launch its contingency plan for Internet connectivity.'' In a worst-case scenario, Rogers customers who have not switched from Excite@Home could lose all e-mail sent to their @home addresses, Mr. Krstajic said yesterday. Excite@Home's debt holders had urged the judge to unplug the service to prove that it is worth substantially more to the cable companies than the US$307-million offered by suitor AT&T Corp. U.S. cable companies said they plan to appeal the judge's decision as soon as possible. © Copyright 2001 National Post canada.com{05497C81-C3BC-4786-9C83-92969C0660D8}