STEVECH
join:2001-02-25
Mimbres, NM
| reply to djrobx
Re: Gee, what a surprise
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. |
