10/01/01
1. Fallen: @Home Files Bankruptcy; Charter Bails Out HSA
2. CableLabs Certifies First 1.1 Modems; Qualifies 2 CMTS'
3. AOL & EarthLink Launched Over TW in Columbus & Syracuse
4. S-A to Exclusively Distribute PBC's CMTS in North America
5. Sunflower Deploys Cadant's CMTS in Lawrence, Kansas
6. Stratecast Releases MSO Market Report
1. Fallen: @Home Files Bankruptcy; Charter Bails Out HSA
@Home has announced that it has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy under section
363, in San Francisco and that it has agreed to sell almost all of its assets to
AT&T for $307 million. The plan is subject to the emergence of higher offers
and closing conditions as well as bankruptcy court approval. The filing is
intended to prevent a disruption in the net access services it provides to 3.7
million subscribers.
AT&T has a 23% stake in @Home and controls 74% of its voting shares.
In previous statements, AT&T has shown no interest in the Excite portal, and
while the web property will remain active during bankruptcy procedures, it is
expected that AT&T would sell Excite.
The low-ball buyout from AT&T appears to be a modus operandi for the
provider. Earlier this year, the company paid $135 million for the assests of
NorthPoint Communications, during its bankruptcy proceedings.
If outbid, AT&T has said that it will build its own redundant access network.
@Home closed today at $0.14 per share. The stock traded at nearly $100 a
share in April, 1999.
In a separate announcement this week, High-Speed Access Corp has said that
Charter Communications will pay $81.1 million in cash to acquire the Internet
access services that HSA has been offering over Charter's cable systems. As
part of the agreement, all HSA Series D Senior Convertible Preferred Stock held
by Charter and Vulcan Ventures will be canceled as well as all warrants held by
Charter to buy HSA stock.
HSA has announced that it will discontinue all operations except for net
services offered over Kabel Nordrhein-Westfalen GmbH in Germany. The
company expects the business, based on a fee-for-service model, to be profitable
this year.
HSA attributes its fallout to current market conditions and a market value that
prohibited it from securing financing.
HSA' s stock closed up $0.18 at $0.35 cents per share. The stock traded at
nearly $50 a share in July of 1999, two months after going public.
@Home
http://www.home.net
AT&T
http://www.att.com
High-Speed Access
http://www.hsacorp.net
Charter Communications
http://www.chartercom.com
2. CableLabs Certifies First 1.1 Modems; Qualifies 2 CMTS'
CableLabs has announced the DOCSIS 1.1 certification of cable modems
submitted by Texas Instruments and Toshiba. The consortium also qualified
two 1.1 headends submitted by Arris Interactive and Cadant. The certifications
come 28 months after the development of the spec.
Twenty nine 1.0 modems were certified in a recent wave including units
submitted by Accton, Ambit, Askey, Asustek, CastleNet, Correlant, Ericsson,
Hauppauge, High Speed Surfing, LG Innotek, Lynksys, Motorola, Panasonic,
Samsung, S-A, SMC Networks, Terayon, Thomson, Toshiba, Trigem Computer,
Turbocomm, and Zoom. A new Motorola CMTS was 1.0 qualified.
New silicon certification was awarded to Terayon and Correlant.
To date, 181 1.0 modems have been certified and 24 CMTS units qualified.
CableLabs
http://www.cablelabs.com
http://www.cablemodem.com
3. AOL & EarthLink Launched Over TW in Columbus & Syracuse
Time Warner has announced that both EarthLink and AOL are offering cable
modem services over the MSO's systems in Columbus, Ohio and Syracuse, New
York. The Syracuse system passes 450,000 homes and the Columbus system
passes 558,860 homes.
The two ISPs are expected to introduce services in Tampa and Raleigh in
October, to be followed by other numerous TW markets by the end of the year.
Time Warner
http://www.timewarner.com
AOL
http://www.aol.com
EarthLink
http://www.earthlink.net
4. S-A to Exclusively Distribute PBC's CMTS in North America
Scientific Atlanta has inked a deal with Pacific Broadband that allows
the vendor to exclusively market and distribute PBC's CMTS and CMTS line
cards in North America. PBC maintains the right to market, sell and support
its products outside of N.A.
Scientific Atlanta
http://www.scientificatlanta.com
Pacific Broadband Communications
http://www.pacificbroadband.com
5. Sunflower Deploys Cadant's CMTS in Lawrence, Kansas
Sunflower Broadband has said that it has deployed Cadant's CMTS over its
cable system in Lawrence, Kansas. Currently, the system serves 32,500 video
subs and approximately 6,000 cable modem subs.
Cadant
http://www.cadant.com
Sunflower Broadband
http://www.sunflower.com
6. Stratecast Releases MSO Market Report
Stratecast Partners, a division of Frost & Sullivan, has released a study entitled
"U.S. Cable MSOs: Strategic Market Assessment & Forecast" that provides a
quantitative and qualitative strategic analysis of Adelphia, AOL/TW, AT&T
Broadband, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast and Cox.
Among its conclusions, the firm predicts Comcast will acquire AT&T
Broadband.
The report is part of Stratecast's ongoing analysis service known as U.S.
Competitive Operator Strategies Analysis Service.
Stratecast Partners
http://www.stratecast.com
© Copyright 2000 Gecko Research & Publishing
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