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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: OWN STOCK who wrote (5136)	3/2/2002 8:20:01 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

re: "[RCN] can be easily taken away by the RBOC, just due to natural economies." Natural economies like this one: Saidel slams shunning of RCN by Philadelphia Philadelphia has come a long way toward emerging from its near-bankrupt days of the early 1990s. In fact, no one would argue that it's doing a whole lot better on all kinds of economic fronts. But is the city doing well enough to turn away a $250 million investment? The straight answer from City Controller Jonathan Saidel: "No." Yet, turn away $250 million is what the City Council did when it stalled Princeton-based RCN Corp.'s bid to compete with political darling and good corporate citizen Comcast Corp. RCN CFO Timothy Stoklosa, who announced the company would bow out this week after more than two years of asking City Council to let it into the city and provide competitive cable and phone choices, said it will "focus instead on the many other communities who have welcomed us with open arms. "RCN can easily shift the money we had set aside for Philadelphia to the suburbs and to our other markets," he said. Ouch. The process should have been way more open, said Saidel. "The cable system in Philadelphia has been mired in politics and a lack of competition for a number of years," Saidel said. "And it's the people of Philadelphia who lose by not having competition." Council has been blamed for holding up RCN out of political favoritism for Comcast. It's bound to hear a lot more criticism after RCN's damning exit: "We gave it our best effort, but two-and-a-half years is an unreasonably long time to wait for approval when other towns are clamoring for our services," said Scott Burnside, senior vice president of regulatory and government affairs for RCN. "It has become clear that some members of the City Council are not ready to give Philadelphians a choice of cable providers." An important lesson is in here somewhere for Philadelphia's lawmakers. Said Saidel: "I think we're not doing that well that we can tell someone not to invest in our city." philadelphia.bizjournals.com