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To: Daniel G. DeBusschere who wrote (10306)	6/4/1999 6:50:00 PM
From: Sorin A. David	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 29970

Tha problem with your opinion is that this ruling IMO will prevent companies from investing in infrastructure. Else, why the heck would I want to spend billions to set up an infrastructure rather than wait for someone else to do it and then with such rules, piggyback for free?... Pretty stupid ruling I think and I am pretty sure it will not stand. If AOL wants to pay to get on the cable, then that's a different story, but not for free.

To: Daniel G. DeBusschere who wrote (10306)	6/4/1999 7:06:00 PM
From: E. Davies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Otherwise, forget the franchise crap and allow ISPs to string their own cable. As far as I know anyone who wants to is free to string cable (or fiber) as long as they work out the right of way issues. They just are not allowed to user that cable for television service. The MSO's are spending additional money out of their own pockets without any franchise to provide additional services beyond television. Why should they be forced to give away the return on that investment, or have that return be goverment controlled? It is arguable that the government might have some say due to the portion of advanced services that rely on the previous television infrastructure. How much is that? Thats not a simple thing to determine, but I dont think it is very much. The HFC fiber optics and all its associated electronics isnt needed for TV. HFC also requires as I understand it new electronics for the coax wires, and much (or all?) of the coax wire itself is also new. A nearly totally new support staff needs to be hired and trained for internet service as well. Even more to the point than that IMO is the fact that @home is not the MSO. They are hired by the MSO to perform a function for them. Does the local city council have the right to tell T who it can lease its cable trucks from? How about who they can buy their copy paper from? Maybe in this twisted world they do, but it does not mean it is right or makes any sense. Eric

To: Daniel G. DeBusschere who wrote (10306)	6/4/1999 7:25:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

>AT&T can't pay enough to lobby their way out of this. They should be happy with the cream and sign up AOL - this would hit the RBOCs and xDSL options for the consumer market in my opinion. So it isn't all that bad unless you own ATHM or ILEC equities. < Mixed reaction to your views, Dan. I agree that this could be a win-win for all involved in the cable space, and the ISPs who attach themselves to it, but only if last mile improvements and re-engineering of the spectrum allocations and new segmenting takes place almost immediately. And I would conditionally agree that it will be detrimental to DSLs and the RBOCs, but only if the MSOs and T do as I suggested in the foregoing. If, on the other hand, T and the others lose their incentives to put in the additional provisions, then DSLs will see a major rise in uptake due to what will inevitably become a very poor cable modem performance rating. All IMO. Of course, this all boils down eventually to funding and equity in the underlying system. Who will pay for it? In the 'net backbone space there are fees paid for peering, route overflows, etc., treating the use of bandwidth almost in a pooling fashion, as a result, and settlements (rough as they are) are used to take up the slack. In the telco world there exists a parallel in the way of access charges paid by LD providers to the incumbent local exchange carriers. Do you suppose we'll see something like that here, in order to rationalize futher pooled utilizations? How would such a plan be adminstered? And yes... I agree with your original assessment: There is no more going home on this one. And if there is, it'll probably only be for one last, and short, stay. Regards, Frank Coluccio