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

To: FR1 who wrote (2756)	9/5/1998 3:19:00 AM
From: sillen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Franz: Saw the same kind of ad where I live (Lakewood, CO) and also went to their homepage only to find nada. I called them and got a better answer telling me the service would be available within a month (end of September). Good Luck Sillen

To: FR1 who wrote (2756)	9/5/1998 11:27:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Respond to of 29970

From my sources T is so committed to the merger that if Malone attempted to nix the deal(which is completely absurd), T would initiate a hostile takeover by immediately making a cash offer. TCI is the cornerstone of T's world wide strategy. The broadband model they have in mind for everywhere depends upon actualizing the test case in scale built on TCI's distribution system. They must show a doubting world that viable services are worthwhile and cheap. If they can get this test model off the runway, then suddenly you have $100 billion worth of true believers and the model will have the wherewithal to be extended worldwide. The margins are thin, but the return is staggering. The thin margins keep competition at bay while the infrastructure is put in place. This is what BT is betting on. It all depends though on TCI getting the SF-Bay Area in place. This is the crucible and T can't provide the support to get the craft taxiing. TCI has to do it all alone. They have to go in deep and right now they are waffling. It isn't that they won't proceed, it's just that there are several factors holding back the attack. One is the hardware and the other is installation. TCI is hoping the new cards that will be available at electronics stores will enable people to "roll their own". Maybe that action will encourage more customer involvement in other aspects of installation. Eventually, maybe half the installations can be limited to HFC to the outside, so the customer takes the cable, splits it, and rigs the card and boxes. Then configuration comes remotely from the browser mfgers before the hookup is attempted and is dependent on the specifics of each site: webtv, computer, type of bus, etc. Let's consider installation theoretically. Say there is 1 million indications of interest. One two man crew can do 5 installations per day. 1,000 crews would take 1 year to do the interest. Before 200,000 installations were completed you would get another million indications as the haves see what the have nots don't. You can form more crews. How much do the crews cost for a million? Say, $100 million. That isn't a roadblock, but how long does it take to put together 1,000 crews? At least 1 year. So the SF Bay Area would reach 20% penetration 1 + 1 = 2 years after the initial phase. The initial phase hasn't started. Training and installation efficiency bring the second year in. You can manipulate these parameters anyway you want but they always end up giving you at least two years. The towns you've listed are bedroom communities with a substantial portion of the homes of recent vintage. They're doing the easier installations first. They have avoided major metropolitan centers for many reasons but there is one good reason, backbone capacity, which stands out. If Berkeley and Oakland were suddenly on-line, the network would overheat. The ATM backbone is not currently robust enough to handle tbps peak loads. It will take time to bring that up too during the installation process. Networks must evolve over time even when they are designed for quick scaling. It helps to have perimeter communities fully wired with mean loads established as a benchmark before extending the network. That way scale evolves and system segment downtime is minimized. I get rather upset with TCI, not because of the stock implications, but the 33.6 has got the way I use the net handcuffed. I'm discovering that the always on feature is important since my current rig rudely cuts me off too often.