To: Jay Lowe who wrote (4149 ) 1/12/1999 8:19:00 AM From: Jay Lowe Respond to of 29970
news.com @Home to handle Hartford problems By Corey Grice Staff Writer, CNET News.com January 11, 1999, 5:40 p.m. PT High speed Internet users in Hartford, Connecticut, are hoping that a late night repair will alleviate problems they have had with the @Home Network in recent months. Tele-Communications Incorporated, the largest partner in @Home's cable modem Internet service, will replace a router tomorrow, according to TCI spokesman David Capo. Capo said the cable operator believes the new equipment will improve service for about 2,000 customers in Hartford that may have experienced sluggish Web surfing over the last four months. Separately, @Home today announced new subscriber numbers and said it has made changes in the way it accounted for its distribution deal with Cablevision Systems. The change will result in restated earnings for the company's fourth 1997 fiscal quarter as well as for the first three quarters of fiscal 1998. Recent performance-related complaints concerning @Home include an increased rate of packet loss--missing information from file transfers or other data transfers--as well as slow surfing, Capo said. "It's faster to use a dial-up modem, a 28.8 or a 56K, than it is to use a cable modem," said a frustrated Scott Greczkowski, an information systems director for a law firm and moderator of the Connecticut @Home Users Group. The small group of about 30 @Home users was formed after many had trouble connecting to Internet sites, Greczkowski said. "We're also seeing as high as 80 percent packet loss," he said, adding the problems have been severe enough that a handful of area @Home users have considered filing a class action lawsuit against the company. These service problems are not the first for @Home and TCI. Many users in Fremont, California--@Home's first market--suffered with slow network access last year. The access problems, coupled with news that @Home has placed limits on the length of "broadcast quality" video users can download, had irked some subscribers. The company also is considering, but has not yet implemented, network-wide upload limits of about 128 Kbps, equivalent to ISDN speeds. TCI's Capo said many users experienced packet loss when the company did not properly set up filters for an @Home subscriber's active server. The subscriber's server was mistakenly recognized as a router so "messages were going to this person's server and just dying there," he said. Capo said the problem was corrected in late December and that tonight's repairs should fix any other service issues for Hartford-area users. Accounting adjustments @Home said it will reverse previous non-cash charges taken in the fourth quarter of 1997 and first quarter of 1998, as well as restate its second and third quarters of 1998. The charges were related to its distribution deal with Cablevision. @Home at the time had opted to account for the charges in those two quarters, as opposed to spreading it out over the 57-month agreement. After discussions with the Securities and Exchange Commission, @Home will amortize the deal over the 57 months. As a result, the company will restate the fourth quarter 1997 and the first quarter of 1998 with a lower net loss. And it will restate the second and third quarters of 1998 with a higher net loss, the company said. @Home will report fourth quarter 1998 and year-end earnings January 20. The company also said it ended the year with 330,000 subscribers, slightly higher than the 300,000 that many industry analysts expected. @Home began 1998 with 50,000 subscribers and had 210,000 customers as of last quarter. Many analysts expect cable modem use to boom in 1999.