An insider claims to us the likely winning bidder is AT&T (we reported them as a finalist on March 6th). The kicker is that they want the HARD assets only - network gear etc, but have no interest in the subscriber base.


A dozen of the largest ISP partners of NorthPoint, Telocity, MegaPath and others will push the court for a 90 day conversion period.. needed to transition their subscribers off the dying network.. meanwhile they are scrambling to move pending orders to Rhythms. Oddly, the ISPs also need releases from paying cancellation penalties to NorthPoint for moving customers away (to save them).

If they don't get the transition period, and AT&T gets what they want, incredibly, 81,000 subscribers (mostly business subscribers) could be turned off within days. If AT&T don't get what they want, the banks will sell the equipment in auctions and the network will still die. (At least one other final bidder is planning the same fate as AT&T plans).
The judge is waiting for NorthPoint to report on all options tomorrow morning at 10am.

The critical issue is that the banks who funded NorthPoint are not prepared to fund another months worth of operation just to make it easy for end users.. and AT&T is clearly disinterested in footing that bill as well.

If it goes down like this.. (remember, this is not confirmed or final, its just a well informed leak), be prepared for a real mess.. in the press, amongst ISPs and customers.