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

To: Doug Robinson who wrote (1219)	1/21/1998 12:39:00 PM
From: David Nelson	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 29970

To All; One thing that you must consider is that only about 30% of households are wired for cable. Even if cable could get all of these households, what would the other 70% of households do for high-speed internet service? Remember, 95% of all households are wired for phone services. Even if you think that this will be a Beta vs VHS battle, VHS (the phone system) has to ultimately win because of the vast difference in the sizes of the potential markets -- especially if you can walk into Circuit City, plunk down $200 bucks and be online the same day without waiting for a service technician to install your system (a complaint of many on this thread). You must also consider that for the mobile business traveler, cable is no solution at all since he can't connect his notebook to AOL from the nearest pay phone, anywhere in the country (The business traveler is one of AOL's largest market segments). Convenience and accessibility will determine the winner just as VHS (the lower quality system) won out over Beta because VHS offered low cost, 6 hour and eventually 8 hour of recording capability, over Beta's 2 hours and eventually 3. Convenience, not to mention accessibility will eventually win. Having said that, there is nothing to stop @home from servicing the RBOCs if the alliances can be established and the service is appropriate. My bet is that the potential of 95% market penetration will win out over cable. I am an @home user but will switch when the DSL solution becomes available so I can use AOL as my main Email and internet service provider. I like to use my notebook wherever I go. --Dave

To: Doug Robinson who wrote (1219)	1/21/1998 11:32:00 PM
From: John Ritter	Respond to of 29970

Interesting discussion on this thread, your point about the phone companies not wanting to give up T1 and ISDN services causes me to respond. Here in Texas we still get billed every month for tone access, rather than pulse (which is free). The phone companies wouldn't be doing anything were it not for the threat of cable not to mention wireless technology. I always enjoyed the old story about Western Union passing up the phone patent saying no one would want that kind of service. What speed will do for us is create a new medium od communication and information on demand. If it were not for government regulation we would already have cost effective options in my opinion. The regulations are to protect the investments by the utilities, same case for deregulation of power generation (stranded fixed costs). The faster we decide who pays who to more forward the better for the entire technology sector. The recent downturn in techs has reduced the costs of technology and will accelerate acceptance of the shift. If I could get a cable modem coupled with phone service installed tomorrow I would disconnect my phone lines, or better yet use a wireless phone with cable for data. If this were not the case why did the cable company run fiber in my neighborhood several years ago, I talked to one of their engineers and he said "we are ready". Well it hasn't happened, @HOME isn't available either.