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To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (4110)	1/11/1999 2:04:00 AM
From: ahhaha	Respond to of 29970

The scale of telephony shouldn't be a significant factor in determining whether a company should pursue it. It is the rate of growth and margins available or improvable that command greater attention. Retaining telephony presence doesn't add to earnings and isn't the world vision that T has even if most of her execs can't see otherwise. A conversion from circuit switching to packet including IP only doesn't grow the market. It only retains the implementer's competitive position. Since T has the lead, they will get briefly a cost advantage. It is that advantage that pulls other telcos into the market and neutralizes any expectations of structurally higher returns. Maybe T gets a bigger customer base, but the cost of implementation eats that advantage alive. Unified messaging is just a buzz word. How does it increase revenues or returns? Ovum is doing like most, taking the existing layout and linearly extrapolating it into the future. This is an error. They seem to imply this is where a telco should want to be more than this is where a telco will have to be. Have to be doesn't add value, it only provides survival. It is like saying that digital tv causes the market in tv to grow or makes the market more profitable. The $60 or $100 billion market will remain that on conversion. That doesn't mean the big player should seek a presence in the converted market as large as they previously had. The better strategy is to become the world's primary provider of added value broadband services and not get lost in the mediocrity of one dimensional voice. T should down size telephony since it is only ancillary to better media. Let the RBOCs tear each other apart trying to grab a piece of the local copper market enhanced by pseudo-technology. T has bigger fish to fry.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (4110)	1/11/1999 12:05:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

All, there's an interesting analysis in Raging Bull re:Portals and Cable Modem Services: ragingbull.com "Broadcast.com: Will the Portals Dethrone this Streaming Media Giant?" January 9, 1999 By Matthew W. Ragas, Editor An excerpt follows: " Broadcast.com is also vulnerable to the roll out of "broadband portals" by the cable companies. Just recently, cable giant Comcast (CMCSA) rolled out OnBroadband.com - billed as the Web's first broadband portal geared specifically to DSL, ISDN, T1 and cable users. Major cable companies such as Comcast, TCI, Time Warner (TWX) and Cox (COX) have seemingly little to gain by partnering with broadcast.com in the broadband arena. These players are more likely to create their own streaming media aggregation points through their relationships with high speed Internet cable services such as Road Runner and @home (ATHM). "