 funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5
2 edits | reply to Corydon
Re: Investors call Brian Roberts' tenure a "Comcastrophe" said by Corydon:The institutional investors are not your allies in the fight against P2P throttling. On the contrary, they are probably your biggest enemy. Wow, you would have nailed me with that except for the fact that I never said that they were allies. (And my fight has less to do with P2P as it does with Network Neutrality.)
I invite you to step back to THIS MESSAGE and its replies. You will see that I never claimed their support.
But now that you bring it up -- allow me to explore an interesting side-street with you.
That said, most investors (and especially Institutional Investors, which you are also somehow arguing over although I never mentioned them) buy a stock like Comcast because it's a growth stock with a wide diversity of products and services. When they buy such a stock, a dividend or a buyback is not expected. They expect to make their money on price appreciation.
For whatever reason (and I have some biggies in mind), investors now see that growth is not coming. So they have two ways to get some of their money back:
1. Ask for cash (dividends). Cash is great because it is its own proof. Cash doesn't care what the talking heads say about why the stock is going to surge.
2. Ask company to repurchase stock. Buybacks are good because the company itself is snapping up stock, which leaves less stock available for buying on the market. As you know, the price of anything (even stock) rises with scarcity.
But the buyer should beware. Dividends and buybacks aren't nearly as good if we're just replacing one cash-generating device (buying back stocks) with another (selling new debt or hanging on to old debt). Comcast is about $30 billion in debt, so where does the cash for the stock buyback or dividends come from? Answer: When there is debt present, it doesn't matter. Just like your household checkbook, you either slow-pay Visa to buy that new Blu-Ray player or you charge it onto your Visa and pay for it later (plus interest).
The one thing consumers and stockholders want the most is truthful information. Enron, Global Crossing, Adelphia, MCI, and others -- these scandals changed everything. The truth is not only required, but in the world of investors it is compelled under the threat of jail. And lately, Comcast's truth has been called into question.
So where's the Sarbanes Oxley for broadband consumers? There isn't one. It only applies to honesty with investors and company economic data. However, in so much as the company was selling 6 Mbps/384 Kbps unfettered connections to the internet (e.g. it's key item of value in inventory), and they continued to sell accounts it even in areas where the network was so congested that it had to cheat some customers by secretly interfering with their connections using Sandvine, and then provided false information as they publicly denied the entire affair -- I'm left to wonder what elements are missing that keeps the government or investors from pressing for a SOX investigation?
So, there you have it. The link between P2P "bandwidth hogs" and investors. Both groups were lied to, and as a result, both groups were cheated. Not friends, but strange bedfellows.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. |
