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.

Comments

Mass mailing last night

[Tolomak]

September 29, 2001

To: All Rogers @Home high speed Internet customers

A couple of weeks ago we made a commitment to keep you updated on any
developments regarding Excite @Home in the U.S.

Yesterday Excite @Home announced that it has agreed to sell its high-speed
Internet access assets to AT&T, pending court approval. We are very pleased
with this announcement as Rogers has worked well with AT&T in the past and
continues to do so. As you may know, AT&T is one of the largest
communications companies in the world.

At the same time, Excite filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of
the United States Bankruptcy Code. This action allows Excite to remain in
control of its business and provides it with protection from creditors
pending completion of the sale.

Please be assured that our commitment to you remains to provide you with
the best high speed Internet service.

We will continue to update you on a regular basis so that you remain
informed.

Alek Krstajic
Senior Vice President and General Manager
Rogers @Home

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.

I have a feeling that...

[frleong]

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 Internet phenomenon that was led by the U.S. was due to the invention of HTTP and web browser and the router and backbone explosion was simply a knee-jerk reaction to the growth of WWW -proving that the telecom market has not been very healthly.

This brings us the question: what is the best remedy for MS if breakup might not be successful?

Cringely Right Again

[General_Corto]

You people may like to look at Bob's article from August 30 which quite neatly explains where Excite@Home finds itself.

Remind me to buy stock in Cringely if he ever IPOs.

This is too confusing

[compugeek007]

Okay maybe ssomeone here with a higher mental capacity can help me -

I Have @Home service, But I pay my bill to AT&T @Home. My cable TV is Comcast, but I pay my bill to ATT Cable. When I call for service, A Media One truck pulls up.

I am beginning to think all of these cable companies are a smokescreen for Microsoft.

Fate of @Home

[psicE]

Actually, that does mean that Excite@Home dropped off the face of the earth, at least as a company, because they already agreed to sell all their assets; I think the only reason they filed Chapter 11 instead of 7 is so people wouldn't lose service while the assets were being transitioned. More interesting, though, is what will happen to the assets. Obviously @Home's network will be merged with AT&T Broadband, but what will happen to Excite? AT&T has three real options:

• Sell it off. Yahoo!, MSN or AOL could buy Excite to gain customers, Viacom or Disney could buy it to gain a (better) web presence, but chances are no one would pay enough to make it worth the effort for AT&T.
• Turn it into an AT&T Broadband-only network. Essentially, AT&T could take the current http://home.excite.com/ page, turn that into http://www.attathome.com/, merge the user databases, and ditch the rest of Excite (so you'd have to be a paying customer to use it). This is probably more likely, but if AT&T's planning on selling off Broadband anyway, it may only take time away from negotiations with another cable company.
• Don't do anything yet. AT&T would pretty much make an Excite@Home group inside AT&T Broadband, and not merge the services at all, instead spending effort on negotiations with Comcast. Then, once Comcast and AT&T Broadband merge, it's Comcast's problem.

I think that AT&T will try for about a month to sell Excite, and if they're unsuccessful, they'll just wait until the merger.

Transition experience? Bad QOS?

[AtariDatacenter]

Having been inside a few companies (and healthy ones, at that) while a transition has taken place (merger, buyout), I'm a little scared to be an @Home customer right now.

One of the first things to go is the quality of service to the customer. Technical foul-ups as things are transitioned, either technically, or between different groups of people.

I have to say that @Home really didn't add much to my Internet experience that, say, Roadrunner, or Media One would have provided. (The Excite merger really didn't see any major benefits for @Home customers.)

While I'm not worried that I'll be completely shut off, I am worried about the quality of service going forward. It is a legitimate concern. But I don't (yet) have enough motiviation to switch to some other form (DSL, etc) of high speed communications.

Here's hoping that @Home/ATT/Whoever doesn't drop the ball.

@home deal falls through

[rant-mode-on]

AOL, ATT and Comcast were falling over themselves today in attempts to buy the ailing @home. However, it is believed that talks have fallen through. Evidence of this was leaked by a disgruntled employee who had a copy the 'training tape' made when Comcast called:

@home: "Hello, can I have your at home account name please?"

comcast: "Er, actually I work for Comcast and I would like to buy your company, and I need to speak to your CEO about a deal"

@home: "Oh, can I have your primary email address then please?"

comcast: "No, you don't understand, I called earlier and left a message for your CEO to call me back."

@home: "Ok, I see the problem then. Could you unplug your cable modem for 30 seconds please?"

comcast: "What? No, I need to speak..."

@home: "I'm sorry that won't be possible, nobody here has telephones. You need to unplug your cable modem."

@comcast: "You don't understand, if I don't speak to your CEO, you could lose your job."

@home: "I'm sorry, my SEE-EE-OH doesn't have a telephone. Could you reboot your PC now please?"

@comcast: "Oh for heavens sake, you'll be the first against the wall"

@home: "Oh there's a problem with your wall, we'll send a technician round then. Thank you for calling @home."

Later on, the disgruntled employee complained about @home's recruitment policy. "At the interview, they said all I needed to be able to do was to pick up the phone and to speak English. Technical ability was never a requirement. They never did trust me - I was never allowed to see the secret document that showed how to transfer calls to people that fix problems. What is a cable modem anyway?"