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STEVECH
join:2001-02-25
Mimbres, NM
| reply to NetworkJoe
Re: Gee, what a surprise
It's not just the bond holders, there are a bunch of stockholders that paid out of their own pockets also filed suit. The argument is pretty simple, AT&T offered 307 million for @Home, and the latest count is @Home has 4.17 million users and growing, that works out to be less than $100 per user acquisition, not to mention any hard assets, and since AT&T is the majority shareholder and controls the board, the suits merely argues that AT&T, rather than trying to pursue profit and grow the company, it undermines the company and buy it for a song, and the ONLY way to realize/unlock the true value of @Home is to shut it down and see whether AT&T is right (that it only worth $307M) or the bondholders/shareholders. BTW, the suits also want to renegotiate terms of @Home's debt (kind of a popular thing in the post dot-com days) and eventually kick AT&T out and have @Home operate as an independent company. | |
djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
 ·PHONE POWER
 ·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T CallVantage
·Time Warner VOIP
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| I don't think they're going to be "Unlocking" anything.
It seems to me they're making damn sure that @home is worthless. They better hope they can make more than $307 million on an equipment firesale, because that's all they're going to get if they follow through with this stupid stunt. I think the fact that nobody has made a better offer than AT&T is telling.
They've already ruined consumer confidence in the @home name. All they've done is proved once and for all that the cable MSOs should not rely on third party ISPs. Now they've forced them all to find alternative means (Comcast and Cox were preparing to do this anyway). If the cable companies can pull it off (AT&T is a backbone provider and already has an ISP for god sakes, not to mention it has a nicely functioning cable network from their MediaOne acquisition), there will be no further need for @home to exist. Those 4 million subscribers won't mean squat.
Dumb, dumb, dumb...
-- Rob | |
STEVECH
join:2001-02-25
Mimbres, NM
| Right now is a game of chicken, from what I've read, the bond holders are owed a collective of some $750M, so assuming that they won't get all of the $307M (minus expenses, etc), you are talking about probably 30 cents for a dollar, in so far as bankruptcy is concerned, it could be a lot worse (ask the Enron bond holders  ).
Now we can say it's all the bond holders' fault and they are willing to screw the users, however, as far as I know, AT&T and others haven't given an inch either, and it looks like everybody's willing to stare down to the end and banking on even if they collectively (AT&T, et al and bond guys) pull the plug, they can absolve whatever consumer confidence that they may suffer as a result.
By the way, according to the CNET article, AT&T is in the worse shape, as they have the most users (3Million +) from @Home, and the least buildup for taking customer off @Home. The Mediaone buyout does not help them as they have not had the infrastructure to utilize those pipes as data pipes. For example, I have AT&T cable in my city forever, but we still have no cable internet access, it was supposed to be online in Sept 1999!!!
The question is how have we ever come to this, it's not just the home casual users, there are schools, people that do business on EBay, etc and just small businesses that rely on their internet access. Now all these people will potentially be jeopedized. The worst part is this is not the first time this happens, we've all seen this movie before with Flashnet, Northpoint, etc. | |
MickiDaMouse
join:2001-02-26
El Paso, TX | You sound pretty knowledgable on the topic. You're not one of the bondholder's lawyers, are you? If so, do me a favor...tell them to LEAVE MY CONNECTION ALONE!!!
Snail-Modem = Poo. | |
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