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To: Jing Qian who wrote (8407)	4/22/1999 7:21:00 PM
From: Neal davidson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

I have Comcast service in Atlanta. I have ATHM through Comcast, and I am very pleased with the service (and very long the stock of ATHM and XCIT). When Comcast bid on Media One, there was concern that TWX, which claimed to have veto rights, might try to get Comcast to switch to RR as a trade off for TWX agreeing to the deal. Can we assume that AT&T would tell TWX to go to hell if they tried to veto the deal or tried to push RR service? If that is not a fair assumption, then I do not see the big deal about AT&T owning Media One rather than Comcast owning them. Both AT&T and Comcast have it in their financial interest to push ATHM, and, quite frankly, I would have to say that Comcast is doing a better job of that than AT&T...at least so far. Comments?

To: Jing Qian who wrote (8407)	4/22/1999 7:23:00 PM
From: Neal davidson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Bob Pisani just mentioned AT&T's interest in ATHM, and how Media One purchase would make AT&T have an interest in RR...he did not discuss how this might affect ATHM's price, nor did he discuss possible merger between ATHM and RR.

To: Jing Qian who wrote (8407)	4/22/1999 7:48:00 PM
From: yihsuen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

OT Jing, Ahhaha's predication is really something. However, most of his concern was respond with some actions from ATHM or T. These days, you can only trace him on the gold thread (ABX, Newmont Mining...) If the economy does evolve around his predication, it will be scary, won't it? I hope with the difficulty of Russia, every sign of gold appreciation, the Russian will wait no time to dump its gold (or oil) reserve to the market. Or, all of a sudden, Milosovici will have a hard time breathing tomorrow morning... Otherwise, mmmm.... sell ATHM and buy ABX??? No, no, scratch that vicious idea (at least for now.) Just be nice to all his effort and be respectful to his wisdom, I sincerely hope ABX will be trading around $24 and stay there until ATHM gets its customers #15,000,000!

To: Jing Qian who wrote (8407)	4/23/1999 2:10:00 AM
From: Peter Y. Hsing	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Let's get some facts straight. - T/TCI is already the largest MSO (pre-UMG) and getting larger w/~15MM subs; TWX is second with ~12MM subs; Comcast is third w/6MM (pre-UMG). - The combined T/TCI/UMG will have roughly 20MM subs or about 28% of all cable subs in the US. - Comcast w/o UMG will only have about 6MM subs as opposed to ~11MM w/UMG. - T does not already own half of RR. T will own less than 25% of RR after the UMG acquisition. - T does own ~71% of ATHM via acquisition of TCI. - T already has a cable telephony deal with TWX. - MSFT owns a 10% (?) stake in Comcast - T loses partial stake in ATHM if it can't cough up some aggressive sub targets (assumes that TCI can't upgrade cable plant quickly enough and spend marketing $$ in time) (Please feel free to correct me on any of the above). So, net-net, I believe that: = T wins: they have reentered the local telephone service via cable telephony in several major markets--these will also feed into their long-distance services, while securing a dominant position for future broadband cable services. T also will now meet renegotiated terms regarding ATHM sub targets. Potential threat is removed as Comcast becomes an ATHM-only shop (CMCSA/K would've had 11MM subs w/UMG). No regulatory hurdles likely at this point--I'm sure that they just reviewed all the potential issues when they did the TCI deal. = ATHM wins in a HUGE way as T/TCI (71% shareholder of ATHM) will utilize ATHM as their broadband cable services platform (with XCIT) = TWX/RR loses--no critical mass/no growth opp unless they make a few cable acquisitions. Could be a small "win" if TWX IPOs RR and use funds from the secondary to make acq. Amount of these funds might be negligible, however = Comcast loses--they certainly can't come up with an offer to top T's and they lose leverage over T b/c now they can't play UMG/RR against T/ATHM. In addition, while they still have attractive assets, they will now be taken over or try to merge with others. Not too many other players w/ >1MM subs and that can offer effective synergies/ clustering. = MSFT loses--Comcast value goes down a bit, RR loses UMG's potential 5MM subs, leaving basically just TWX's 12MM subs = Paul Allen wins--an IPO of Charter Communications may fetch a mega-premium as cable properties get snapped up in the continuing consolidation. Not sure if there is an exclusive arrangement between Charter and HSAC/Pipeline though.