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To: ahhaha who wrote (9232)	5/7/1999 1:37:00 PM
From: Michael P. Michaud	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Ahhaha, Looks like Kennard is looking hard at this one: FCC warns AT&T, MediaOne deal needs careful scrutiny WASHINGTON, May 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard on Friday warned that AT&T Corp.'s (T - news) complex acquisition of MediaOne Group Inc. (UMG - news) would require extensive review by his agency. ''This is a complex transaction,'' Kennard said in a statement. ''Because of its size and reach and the many novel legal and policy issues involved, this proposed merger warrants very careful scrutiny.'' Kennard's agency has the ability to block mergers or impose conditions if it concludes that a deal is not in the public interest or harms consumers or other market players. AT&T agreed earlier this week to buy MediaOne, the third-largest U.S. cable company, in a $58-billion deal that would make the long-distance phone giant the largest U.S. cable operator. AT&T has repeatedly tried to assure investors that it would take whatever steps necessary to comply with U.S. laws and FCC rules to allow the deal to go ahead. Kennard's short statement was in sharp contrast to his remarks last year, when he welcomed AT&T's first cable acquisition, a $48 billion purchase of Tele-Communications Inc.

To: ahhaha who wrote (9232)	5/7/1999 2:10:00 PM
From: Ted Schnur	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

I agree. An agreement between ATT/ATHM and AOL (or any ISP who wants to migrate their customers to cable access) would be very positive for all parties. I was drawing a distinction between a business agreement and the government forcing an open access arrangement. In the latter, the regulators will try to dictate terms that they think would be fair to everyone, and I think that would be impossible. Frankly, I don't see any reason why ATHM can't just start advertising "… and for an additional $9.95/mo, you can access the Internet's premium channel… AOL!" Why wait for an agreement? Ted

To: ahhaha who wrote (9232)	5/7/1999 3:01:00 PM
From: Ted Schnur	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

"…You want to give AOL free ride on your wires. It is elementary how this returns far more than it loses. Can you tell me why? (Hint: Does T expect to make the big money by maintaining the wires?)" Well, this sounds like a challenge. Let assume that out of the $40/mo that ATHM/ATT changes for the service, $12 goes to ATHM for infrastructure (starting with the routers located at the cable head end), content, and e-mail services. Now comes along a ISP who wants to migrate there customers to cable access for the same $40. ATHM gets the same $12/mo, but instead of providing e-mail and content, the money goes to the @Work division to supply high-speed links between ATHM's internal network and the ISP's. T gives up some of it's $28/mo to the ISP, but recovers part of the lost revenue by providing the high speed lines to the ISP along with some up front funds for infrastructure cost, or even a small equity in T itself. In the long run, T could sell additional high-speed links between E-commerce sites and ATHM's internal high speed network (running on all those ATT high speed lines) as on-line purchases/subscriber and multi-media advertising is added to the "number of eye-balls" metric. OK, now I'm way out of my league! Go ahead, rip me a big one! Ted