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@HOME - AOL Deal Brewing?
xTg writes "News.com is reporting that Excite@HOME is restructuring its divisions to facilitate a merger with AOL. The most important question in my mind:
Does this mean I have to pay more for my cable modem now in exchange for AOL "premium" content? Does AOL like linux? blah." I don't care whether it's AOL or @home, as long as I can keep using Linux with my cable modem and they don't jack the price too hard. Whatever. We customers are nothing but pawns in all of this until the cable monopolies either get some solid competition or are forced to open their lines to outside ISPs. I second xTg's "blah."Update: 10/01 10:48 by H : Apparently, the deal is being denied by AT&T.
This is not good for consumers! Competition is close to non-existant as is.. and the FCC who was supposed to encourage competition is naively allowing these mergers - which put us back in the same #$@! position we are right now with cable companies - one company per region! AAAggggghhh! It's enough to make me scream.
And ever since MediaNone merged with NotHome, my service has been creeping steadily downhill - it's impossible to play quake2 after 16:00 because the latency and packet loss is so bad it makes me want to cry. ;(
Come on! Write to the FCC, write to your local PUC... please please please don't let this happen!
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Price and performance are not the only negative aspects of ISP monopolies. American Online is famous for its "Family Oriented Content" id est Censorship. The one thing keeping the internet free of regulation currently is the myriad of means by which to gain access. Once that access is restricted to a small handful of enormous companies, the government (not to mention the companies themselves) can easily dictate what we can and cannot use the net for.
Additionally, once everyone is forced to go through the big ISPs for service, it will be very difficult for small service providers to break into the market. The price of wiring an area / number of people willing to go with smaller ISPs in that area ratio will be too small to justify any company from offering censorship free service.
It is imperative that we resist ISP monopolies!
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying." -- Woody Allen
Early this year, an eminent computer scientist gave a talk at the University of Washington, where he basically implied that the only broadband choices most people will have in the future are your local cable company and your local telephone company. When you think about it, this is pretty awful, as these entities (here in Seattle: TCI and USWest) are, at least in the United States, near the top of any consumer's list of most-hated corporations.
One of the few rays of hope comes from Tacoma, Washington (of all places). Like many communities in the Pacific Northwest, Tacoma's electric utility is owned by the city itself. A few years ago they were thinking of adding a feature that would require them rewiring most of their network (I think it was to install automatic meter readers), and someone got the bright idea, "Hey, what if we ran an extra cable into every home as well?" The original thought was to get some competition for TCI, which was, as usual, not delivering on its commitments, but the cable could be used for Internet Service as well. Their survey estimated that the cost would be not much more than the original project, and bound to pay for itself within a few years from ISP and Cable fees. They ran a public opinion poll at the same time, which basically found that (a) If they priced their cable service less than TCI, an overwhelming number of citizens would switch. (b) Even if the services were roughly equivalent, 50% would switch (presumably out of disgust with TCI).
So they're in the middle of the switch, and TCI has, predictably, fallen all over themselves upgrading Tacoma's networks. Anyway, I'd like to see more cities adopt this model. First, because I think in the future Internet access will be just as important a utility as our current utilities (phone, cable, water, etc.) and therefore worthy of an extra wire. Second, even if you don't think government-run utilities are a good idea (I think they are, but I won't get into that too much), we need more broadband options. Two isn't enough, especially two that are controlled by such dubious entities as your friendly neighborhood cable company and your friendly neighborhood phone company.
I work for iMALL, Inc. which is soon to be acquired by Excite@Home. We just met today with Joe Kraus, one of the six co-founders of Excite. One of the questions asked was "Is there any truth to the rumor that Excite@Home is considering merging with AOL?"
The answer?
"No. I have no idea where this current rumor started. Well, I have some idea, but it really looks like they've recirculated old news about negotiations that were stopped three months before the rumor hit the papers."
He went on to say that yes, Excite@Home was talking with AOL months ago about putting portal links up on Excite pages for AOL/Netscape services. AOL thought Excite@Home's requirements were too high (a stock-sharing arrangement with AOL in exchange for the space) and the negotiations were dropped immediately (we're talking like 6 months ago).
The current restructuring is necessary to ease the burden on corporate heads and to bring divisions more inline with Excite@Home's underlying corporate philosophies and "the way things work" in the company. Things have been a bit uncomfortable since Excite's merger with @Home, but now the two complementary businesses (broadband access & search/portal business) support each other better, as well as make room for the upcoming merger with iMALL to serve as their e-commerce division.
I hope this has helped dispell this unfounded rumor.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
In fact, I'm only paying $30/month instead of the normal price of $40/month because of AOL.
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Recently in the Bay Area (CA), @Home advertised a promotion designed to attract existing AOL members. Basically, they waved all installation fees ($150) and then would pay your AOL bill until the year 2000. The way they did this is by having your change your $22/month AOL account to AOL's $10/month "BYOA" (Bring Your Own Access) deal where you keep your AOL account, but cannot dial into their AOLNet numbers. So, instead you connect to AOL over a TCP/IP connection...which is what @Home gives you.
They pay for your account by basically subtracting $10/month from your @Home bill. I signed up for this in July so, it will save me probably $150 + $60.
Anyway, this news comes too late for anyone in the Bay Area who missed the ads on late-night TV but my point is that @Home is already following AOL's plan of "AOL anywhere". AOL doesn't care how the AOL content gets to customers (be it satellite, cable, DSL, etc)...they just want to sell their proprietary content. I find it funny that about a month before this deal, AOL was lobbying for "open lines" so that AOL could have access to all of the cable modem customers. @Home wasn't interested in letting people choose AOL as their ISP. But then, a month later they offer this deal and basically tell people "you can have TWO ISPs and it's even cheaper!"
Technically, I now have eight e-mail address (five from AOL, three from @Home) and 20 MB of web space (10MB from AOL, 10MB from @Home). Yet, I used to be paying $22 + $40 and now I'm paying $30. I don't understand the business behind it, but I think that @Home really tipped its hands by offering this deal. They obviously lust after AOL's 16 million + members.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
From what I gleaned from the text of the article, AOL would control the Excite part of @home, and AT&T would control the ISP part. That's IF the deal happens at all, which probably won't be the case because Cox has veto power and is against the breakup of @home, which would be necessary for the deal to take place anyway.
Your Linux cable connection is not going to go away any time soon. Please read the article before getting paranoid.
- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"