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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis J Baltz who wrote (12557)	4/24/1999 8:54:00 AM
From: steve host	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

Dennis - a reasonable response, but AOl will not be able to buy ATHM since ATT through TCI has the major stake in the company. As for another cable company, the other major one is Time Warner -- another unlikely target -- In addition, with the proposed takeover by ATT and MediaOne ATT would have a major stake in RoadRunner (the ATHM of Time Warner) and thus there would be very few cable companies with significant subscribers for AOL to take over. As for the gov't -- as the FCC chairman and others have already stated, they are very very reluctant to regulate ATT's internet interests . Unlike the examples you mention, to provide the Broadband ATT must upgrade there infrastucture spending billions of dollars. They have stated they will not do so if they can not capitalize on the expenditure and the govt officials appeared to understand (eg - FCC chairman). In fact , as ATT pointed out, if people want to use the phone to access the net they could still do so, so the monopoly argument does not fly. The Govt initially granted ATT the monopoly on phone for many many years -- why ? for the same reason , they were the ones laying the wire and expending the money. No one would do that if they felt they would not be able to capitilize on it.