Chapter 11 For Excite@Home

n8twj writes: "According to this story at CNET News, Excite@Home, the leading provider of broadband Internet access, said Friday it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and sell its high-speed network to AT&T for $307 million in cash." jgbrown adds: "@Home files for Chapter 11, they are going to sell their assets to AT&T unless they get a higher offer. Here is a Yahoo News link." An Anonymous Coward adds a link to a story at cnnfn.com." Just like Loki and Exodus, this doesn't mean that Excite@Home has dropped off the face of the earth -- it does mean that are seeking legal protection from creditors in an attempt to reorganize.

Oh thank Go

[satanami69]

Thank you sweet lord. I saw AOL was eyeing the @home network. I sooo would rather have At&T thatn AOL. They don't even have an SMTP server for their users. Thank you Jesus.

Re:I have a feeling that...

[Jace of Fuse!]

AT&T is suffering major problems stemming from the breakup, and will likely never recover.

I've never been convinced that the breakup is responsible for any of AT&T's termoil. They've had plenty of time to "get over it" and any failure to do so since then has just been bad business execution.

Re:I have a feeling that...

[Static Analysis]

AT&T, the company that U.S. government broke into pieces due to antitrust, is gaining back gradually its monopoly position. Looking at the telecom market in the U.S., the breakup was not particularly effective and comparing to the mobile cellular phone technology of NTT's DoCoMo or of Europe, the U.S. technology in this area sucks.

The problem, as I see it, isn't that the breakup was ineffective, but that later Congresses decided to render it ineffective. They decided to make the market less competitive (or at least to allow for noncompetitive behavior) at a time when more competitive action was actually needed. Nominally, the system was opened up a bit. But as we've seen with the demise of so many dsl providers (for instance), it wasn't really very open. These crazy mergers are making it less open.

I think a MS breakup would be a good thing. I'm not sure that there' a solid legal case for it; in fact, I think the legal case is probably quite bogus. But I think that from a consumer's point of view it would be a good thing. If that doesn't happen, the next best thing would be to require that all file formats be nonproprietary and publicly odcumented. That goes for everyone, not just MS. In fact, that would probably be even more beneficial to consumers than a breakup, since it would force actual competitive behavior.

Were are AT&T, resistance is futile.

[disc-chord]

(replace AT&T with Adelphia if they happen to be the one gobbling up your local cable provider)

We are AT&T, we will add your technological destictiveness to our own, while purchasing your pipes and customer base at pennys of the initial cost. Lower your shields, resistance is futile.

If there is any cable providers besides AT&T, AOL, and Adelphia in 2 years I'll be amazed.

Not necessarily a sham

[Red Aardvark House]

AT & T has the money and infrastructure capabilitird to avoid someone else running their network. For most other startups, the investment in the wiring, etc. needed is too great.

Believe me, if @Home could run their own network, they would have.