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

To: Peter Y. Hsing who wrote (8506)	4/23/1999 2:30:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

I held your view until the FCC allowed the T-TCI merger without conditions. There are complex reasons why they couldn't, associated with the their perceived need to break up the RBOC local monopolies, which are detailed in the thread. But I had expected worse and FCC was magnificent. Perhaps they made the first truly free market decision by government in history. The DOJ deserves some credit too. Don't under estimate this FCC. They may have grasped the "vision" better than an impatient T. Unfortunately the very freedom that they exercised to reach the good view must now put them in hand cuffs. They have to appear to serve all the people. This is good too. It doesn't matter what the exact percentages of penetration are. It only matters that there is a perception of dominance. It is a valid perception and it isn't in T's interest to have such dominance. Practically speaking they are biting off more than they can chew. If they can't get this BB system built quickly because their resources are being exhausted by these purchases, then the intermediate copper market has a major opportunity to grab presence. It won't be Comcast that lays out the dough to upgrade their system once they are back in the fold, T will have to pull the line itself. This is a major reason why Comcast jumped. Comcast saw they might as well get the profits if they were going to have to go it alone anyway. Comcast also gets choice and flexibility which they can extend to their customers that didn't exist under the cable partners' exclusivity clause. There is the TCI hegemony still floating around which Comcast doesn't like. The ATHM Board meetings were very hot because the cable partners could hardly agree about anything. This tells you that the proper and natural course is for these various cable MSOs to create their own separate systems. T could make agreements with each of them to carry telephony and other services without having to make these tremendous investments. It isn't in T's interest to stop RR. I have always claimed that SBC should be opposing T in cable. If SBC hadn't gotten messed up with their poor Ameritech? or XYZ? acquisition and if they had some thoughtful management, they would. They will realize they should. Maybe now. Maybe they're entertaining some phone calls from TWX as I write this. The only way AOL can get involved is through the open back door that T forgets to close while in the act if the FCC lets them shoot themselves in the foot. AOL gets nothing out of the arrangement you have suggested. You're trying to claim apples are oranges, because both are fruit. It is like the Sultan of Brunei buying UMG just because he has a big pile of dough. Same with Gates. This isn't the game, "Monopoly". T shares economic ownership? Are we on the same page? This isn't public sharing time. You have to clarify what you mean because what it sounds like is grade school idealism.