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

To: E. Davies who wrote (8917)	5/2/1999 5:59:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

We all fumble at some level of technical imprecision regardless of what we know. This is true because no one can even tell you what an electron is. We only know a little about how it behaves, and even that is inferred as is its particularity. After all, it has no surface and is infinitely shielded by photons. We know a little about it based on how that photonic shielding interacts with other photons. So we are left with what is a photon? No one knows that either and it seems that is critical in order for the charade called theoretical physics to continue. Quantum mechanics suggests that there is a limit to how fine we can hope to understand the physical world. ATHM is intimately involved with electrons and photons, so there is a limit to what anyone knows about how the network works. I mean closer in the network space for performance reasons. This statement is no more clearer than the original I mean on the @home network. I'm fumbling here to find basic precepts about the value of what you call the @network. True. You haven't learned what the @Network is. I may be the only one on this thread that has any idea of it. How can you invest in a company if you don't know what their basic structure is? You say(as I understand it) 90% of copper ISP problems are related to overload of the backbone and that @homes 'bone is essential to its functioning. Yet Frank says the backbones have (or will have) more than enough bandwidth to handle broadband. No. Frank didn't say that. He said that if the current demand for throughput mostly in 50kbps and less unit pulls were to remain static, current plans to provision all networks would mean there would be no latency assuming no subsystem downtime. This isn't the case if the 60M users all are pulling 3 mbps. That overwhelms the best technology capabilities that we have. WDM can't cope with this volume. It is why Frank and I started the Silkroad thread. Then if we are talking 600M users worldwide... Dave Horne once posted that his @home connection was on commonly about 200k through to the net and up towards 1.5meg internal to the @home network. Thats a profound difference if it continues to the future. Yes, profoundly troublesome. When you shoot through a NAP to the great unwashed, the parallel network advantage is diminished. Right now though that isn't the issue. The last mile is where the congestion will become a real pain. On the Silkroad thread I have suggested that SR (whatever that may be) could be modified to accommodate the last mile rather than the current thinking about applying it to the long haul. I always felt that the highest density throughput has to occur in the local loop because that is where what you now call "network space" becomes dense. You can't string wire so that it is the equivalent of broadcast, so you have to increase the signal density per wire and do it cheaply. Enter SR (we hope). In my estimation if the @network contains a significant performance advantage over other broadband isp's who dont have a national presence then (and possibly only then) can @home derive significant income from advertising and e-commerce generated from its broadband content. National presence isn't so much an issue. ATHM's technological lead was significant until TCI squandered the advantage on the incremental digital tv feed. You are putting too much emphasis just like Armstrong on domination. Why not try to make what you have successful and then gradually scale it? The reason given is that your competitors won't let you take the time. This is so stupid it boggles the mind. ATHM has severely over-extended itself in the head long rush to dominate. The field isn't even dry to expect to get sure footing and rain clouds are threatening. You don't need to end up competing against yourself. e-commerce and all the rest will come if you have a solid delivery. Otherwise why would anyone go to the @home home page? That's not why I bought shares in ATHM and that's not why I have ELNK. Who needs to go to ATHM's home page? ATHM is a delivery mechanism which scales in quality. They are unique in that respect. I see no way @home can possibly justify its market cap and the market cap I would like to see it have purely through subscriber fees. You didn't read my post closely. MSOs need the cash cow stability of subscription. Ads don't have that stability. The net ad thing will not be like tv ad power, at least not until there is full motion video ubiquity. The Internet shake-out will hit that aspect of the net most severely. Highway billboards are more effective than ad applets and static net adds are reliably ignored. Applets may even be sales negative. Mark it, if you ever intend to go short the Internet stocks. what value does Comcast get in leaving @home? I need a couple concrete examples to understand. In an atomic nucleus it takes the strong force to keep the repelling protons from flying apart. The strong force is the strongest we currently know. Releasing it makes mushroom clouds. The cable partners are like protons and ATHM was the strong force. Unfortunately, the cable partners were not a stable nucleus and beta decay, high speed electrons, which have their own agendas and we have no idea what they are, have caused the nucleus to so degrade that we now have an isotope. It is radioactive and there may be another beta coming out soon. What the electrons get is autonomy outside of the hegemony of the T quark. An unprecedented bust of asymptotic freedom enables you to determine your own destiny and that means achieve a more profitable flight.