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Technology Stocks : IDT *(idtc) following this new issue?* -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 613 who wrote (30330)	5/18/2004 9:27:21 PM
From: carreraspyder	Respond to of 30916

nortel is providing "converged infrastructure to enable expanded service offerings." chile is ucoma's best (upgraded) property in south america; ucoma is upgrading it yet more. ucoma also has an mso in argentina. that dow jones news release from yesterday said ntop was talking to 3 msos. the implication was either they all in brazil (?) because of paragraph structure, or in 'latin america' because of the news release title. at the last conference call, greenberg said it had one team going to south america. (nothing about 3 possibilities; so that's now an update.) that's 'working on' -- not done, i know. that nortel article said there was an ongoing IP telephony trial -- a separate event. "ongoing" -- but nortel has yet to expand the network. i am not sure if the chile mso had a switched circuit platform already in place. the nortel extension though is PacketCable. [the brand new ceo of nortel is on idt's board of directors] liberty media is engaged in rolling out "liberty media international" which will group all its cable msos and their activities together, separate from content/media. i think that is actually happening fast -- june. malone is moving his family investments to lmi. a lot of these properties are not 100% owned by liberty media; i think the chile mso may be. puerto rico was 100% owned by liberty media. in japan (jcom), the platform is switched circuit, unfortunately; however, i believe jcom is looking to buy additional smaller msos in japan. re liberty media floating the idea that it was willing to partner with cox to get adelphia -- what liberty media really wants is the 25% of Discovery that Cox owns. it will horse trade. i tried to find out from a liberty media group if there was any likelihood liberty media would keep pieces of adelphia -- and not be so fervent in getting Discovery that it trades all of adelphia off. the investors there were interested in how it worked for liberty; so it was a deadend. time warner today said it was interested in adelphia. time warner may have SEC problems, but maybe not. no one so far has said they want all of adelphia, and i don't believe anyone will pay up. a composite purchase by multiple msos may do it though. on the other hand, i would rather adelphia stayed independent and followed thru with the rfp for ntop cable telephony responded to. if not, there are various payoff matrices for ntop from possibily something to something decent to nothing, depending on the purchaser. i'm starting to lose track of the status of various things, and so need a new 'imminent' conference call to move me away from the vagaries, i.e., stuff done and stuff undone. at least we'd have something to track to. the bresnan news was not released to a major outlet -- let alone coming out at a liberty media meeting in the afternoon where ntop isn't represented anyway. nothing the next day, friday, which could have worked; nothing monday. that was very poor dealing, with everything at stake. to waste a deal with little news is obscene. charter and mediacom still have to lay out their plans that may involve a cable telephony provider. mediacom once said it was not going to do this without a vendor partner .. but mediacom also said the plans would be laid out by now. mediacom was headed to a second half of year voip rollout, and it was going to be aggressive. there's another leg for charter voip news, and the first real leg for mediacom, assuming everything continues to track to what charter and mediacom said they needed. remember, this cable telephony business is for them. they benefit from rolling out what they need -- and they are both committed to this, but of course we have to actually see if it is with someone (the rfp ntop responded to for charter, means charter is looking at a provider for some of it). mediacom is sort of a well -- mediacom does very little news pr, but sometimes shows up at 'events,' and pr's that. the recent charter news re nortel in wausau nvolved charter's switched circuit platform -- ntop, if it is looking at anything, is looking to where charter competes with satellite and has no network in place ... that could potentially cover a high number of properties, smaller size ... wausau: NEW TECHNOLOGY MAY GIVE LAND LINES AND CELL PHONES A RUN FOR THEIR MONEY May 17, 2004 MANY OF US USE CELL PHONES AND LAND LINES TO TALK WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY. BUT NOW, CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS IS OFFERING ANOTHER OPTION.IT'S CALLED VOIP OR VOICE OVER INTERNET PROTOCOL. IT WORKS JUST LIKE A REGULAR PHONE. A BOX IS PLACED OUTSIDE YOUR HOME AND THEN A MODEM LIKE DEVICE IS INSTALLED IN YOUR BASEMENT.BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO DIAL-UP TO CONNECT. JUST PICK UP THE PHONE AND LISTEN FOR THE DIAL TONE.CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS SPOKESPEOPLE SAY THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY IS THAT IT CAN SAVE YOU MONEY.LISA WASHA OF CHARTER COMM. V.P. OF OPERATIONS SAYS, "WHEN THEY PUT OUR PRICE AND SERVICE NEXT TO A COMPETITOR, THEY SEE WHAT A GREAT OPPORTUNITY THIS IS, LOWER PRICE, BETTER VALUE."CHARTER SAYS ONE OF THEIR PRIMARY CONCERNS WITH THE NEW TECHNOLOGY WAS RELIABILITY. BUT AFTER TWO-YEARS OF VOIP TRIALS, THEY BELIEVE IT'S NOW THE MOST RELIABLE SERVICE IN THE AREA.

To: 613 who wrote (30330)	5/18/2004 11:02:28 PM
From: carreraspyder	Respond to of 30916

613, my best shot at getting something for you. ...the cable msos are ready to decide when they are ready to make it a business practice. recently, charter said all its voip plans were being kept as far under wraps as they could keep them, and that was intentional. seriously, if you read the other voip boards you see they have nothing they are waiting for, other than business reversals ... ntop has active engagements. stuff happening now; that hasn't used up the pipeline -- and which will lead to specific beneficial outcomes not being seen by wholesale voip providers. 5/18 "hey, can't say anything re: charter other than what has already been said by them. honestly, had they not publicly stated that they were considering us in their rfp process, we most likely wouldn't have divulged that we were talking to them, similar to the way we didn't divulge that we were talking to cebridge, bresnan, etc. when the deals happen, we'll talk about them. between all the cable operators that have selected us thus far (liberty puerto rico, bresnan, cebridge, northland, coditel, est video), we are already talking about 2.3 million homes passed in four countries, covering 20 states. we're making inroads. we are now seeing a groundswell of cable operators outsourcing telephony. maybe it happened a little later than the market expected it, but that's because the decisionmakers were slow to decide - not because we were losing business. we're going to continue to keep focused on signing operators and implementing these deals. based on our current experiences in puerto rico, we are confident in our ability to deploy telephony and garner high levels of customer satisfaction. hope that helps, Sarah Hofstetter"