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

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (10455)	6/5/1999 12:09:00 PM
From: DavidCG	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Federal Court ruling implications: Read on! The Federal District court decided Friday at 3:30 pm that each municipality in the USA can decide if AT&T can have exclusive interests there and force people to use only ATHM (and what municipality is going to allow this?..none) ISP's (Internet Service Providers) like PRGY stand to gain huge Why? Because they want to offer AT&T cable service to their customers. They want access to it. Because this court ruling was totally unexpected by AT&T and the ISP's, and the stock market...the ISP's like PRGY, MSPG, etc should benefit greatly. Will AT&T appeal this? Well, duh, of course. But just the mere fact that a court ruled this way is sending shockwaves through the markets. The only real play here is buying ISP's PRGY is cheaper than MSPG and AOL, therefore I can buy a lot more of it because it trades at a lower price to its rivals. Leverage factor on this type of news is huge. PRGY can easily go back to $35-$40 in the coming days once people figure all of this out Remember, this court decision wasn't known until the final 30 minutes of trading on Friday. How many people stuck around for the last 30 min of friday? How many people knew about this court decision as it came out? My bet: not many. And they want in badly now. People will buy ISP's big on Monday and in the coming weeks. The other play of course is to short ATHM who loses its exclusivity in the market. Good Trading! -DavidCG

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (10455)	6/5/1999 12:10:00 PM
From: Benkea	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Frank: "however, T's continued incentives to improve plant will be dictated by how they may or may not charge for carriage on their systems." As an ATHM shareholder, it pains me to admit that T WILL build out the network regardless of open access. Open access just means T will charge all the ISPs the same $11.20 it gets from its' 70% ownership interest in ATHM. T really doesn't have that much in ATHM in dollars and T still gets its' 71% cut off ATHM's business collected from other cable networks. This investment in ATHM really is very inconsequential as relates to T's loyalty to cut its' head off to spite its' nose. I live in Bellsouth country. Since Time Warner can't seem to get me Road Runner until early 2000, at best, I arranged for DSL installation next Thursday! Bellsouth has local phone service, digital tv, cell phone service, paging, and all the other goodies T envisions for its' bundling strategy except LD. T WILL upgrade with or without ATHM or the bells will beat it. Besides, T only gets $11.20 for each $16 ATHM gets and not even all of that comes from T's cable networks. So T will still get the $11.20 from ATHM off others' networks. Unfortunately, T could give a crap about ATHM when it comes to T or ATHM.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (10455)	6/5/1999 1:17:00 PM
From: DOUG H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Frank and thread, Since I'm the dumdest guy on this thread I know I must be missing something. But I can't figure out what it is. There has been much posted regarding T's opposition to this ruling in Oregon but I've not seen anything from ATHM. Frank, as you point out there are costs of upgrades that must be done and these cost must be paid by the ISP's requesting entry. Additionally, These ISP's are not granted "free" access, merely access if they cover the costs associated with that access. Then pay a yet to be determined amount for ongoing occupancy. >>>>>>What price access? <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >>>Left unanswered in the judge's ruling is another, perhaps more critical, issue: How much should AT&T be allowed to charge for access to its cable lines. AT&T could charge such a high amount, for example, that it would still be cheaper for consumers to purchase its AtHome cable Internet service than that of a rival provider like AOL. If that happens, ISPs would likely have to go back to court in pursuit of limits on how much AT&T could charge. For AT&T, the ruling is much less a blow than it is for AtHome. Even if it eventually loses the appeal -- a process that could take up to a year or more -- Ma Bell still stands to profit handsomely. The ISPs will have to pay up no matter what. "Nobody is asking AT&T to give away their access. Let AT&T make a fortune charging access. The customers will win. The competitors will win. And AT&T will win," said Jeffrey Kagan, an independent telecom analyst based in Atlanta. "The only negative ... from AT&T's perspective (is) that they have to let competitors use their facilities." <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< I just don't see how ATHM is the loser here. The ISP's pay the cost to entry, an ongoing fee (at a cost yet to be determined) on a network that must be underutilized at present and can be scaled in the future. My pea brain must be missing something or...? Thanks, D.H.