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

To: Andrew N. Cothran who wrote (4390)	1/18/1999 12:09:00 PM
From: riposte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

T Article in Sunday NYT - ATHM Mention A snippet from this past Sunday's New York Times... Publication Date: Sunday January 17, 1999 Money and Business/Financial Desk; Section 3; Page 1, Column 5 c. 1999 New York Times Company By SETH SCHIESEL THE future of the AT&T Corporation is not hard to find -- if you can read a floor plan. It is in Room 4430G2 at AT&T's sprawling headquarters in Basking Ridge, N.J. There are five PC's in Room 4430G2, a big-screen television and a bunch of phones. Nothing special in any of that. What distinguishes the setup is what's missing: telephone wires. All the key equipment links to the outside world through a single cable television line. And the line is providing lightning-quick Internet connections, crisp video images and, of course, a dial tone. Simple as it seems, that ribbon of coaxial cable represents what may prove to be the most important strategic shift in decades at AT&T, the nation's biggest communications company and its most widely owned stock. Fifteen years after the break-up of the Bell System severed AT&T's hard-wire link to United States consumers, its pending acquisition of Tele-Communications Inc., the No. 2 cable operator, will allow AT&T to again reach out and directly touch millions of homes. And trying to re-create AT&T's glory days, the company's new chairman, C. Michael Armstrong, wants AT&T to be the only communications provider its customers need. Is that a pipe dream in an arena teeming with competition -- wireless companies, long-distance companies and local phone companies, not to mention Internet providers and satellite TV services? Maybe not. Three thousand miles from Basking Ridge, dozens of technicians in Fremont, Calif., are preparing to move Mr. Armstrong's vision out of Room 4430G2 and into the living rooms of paying customers. Soon after the merger closes, as soon as this spring, the TCI brand will start to disappear in Fremont, a middle-class suburb of San Francisco, and Mr. Armstrong's operators will be calling consumers to offer AT&T's new wares. The pitch will go something like this: ''Hi, this is AT&T. Did you know that we can now offer not only long-distance phone service but also four lines of local service with call-waiting and Caller ID? And may we interest you in our high-speed Internet service, called At Home? It lets you download from the Internet at speeds as much as 100 times faster than you can today -- and at prices comparable to what you're already paying.'' The salesperson will pause to catch a breath, and then continue: ''If you don't want high-speed access, how about a more traditional Internet service, like AT&T Worldnet? And a wireless phone that includes nationwide calling for as little as 10 cents a minute? Oh, yes, we can provide all of these services on a single bill with one number to call if you have questions.'' But AT&T's proposition to consumers will be about more than a simple variety of services; it will be about the extra perks that come from becoming a full member of the AT&T family. So the closer will be along these lines: ''By the way, if you use any three of our other services, we would be happy to add HBO and the Disney Channel to your basic cable package for no additional charge.'' By the end of 1999, AT&T intends to offer this integrated package of communications services not only in Fremont but also in another, undisclosed community in the San Francisco area as well as in Chicago, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, Ore., and St. Louis. By the end of 2000, the company intends to expand its competition against its progeny, the Baby Bells, by offering local phone service in most of TCI's other markets.