AT&T Ends Bid To Buy @Home Assets

thumbtack writes: "In the neverending story of the @home saga it's being reported (on the Excite Portal which is not going under) that AT&T has broken off their bid to purchase Excite@home assets. They cite a number of significant contractual breaches and other violations by the bankrupt broadband Internet access company. In another related story Comcast and Cox say they have inked separate $160 million dollar deals to continued service while they develop their own networks. AT&T say that as of Tuesday morning they have moved 500,000 of their subscribers over to their network."

Why require a test?

[sweetooth]

We'll still have just as many morons on the Net as we have morons on the roads.

Only hurts bondholders

[bstadil]

This only hurts the @home bond-holders. The guys that convinced the bankrupcy judge that it was better to leave 4M+ accounts without internet connection then weaken thier bargaining position. Could happen to nicer people. I never understood the rationale for the Poker game they played.

Re:Great news!

[AstroJetson]

Seriously, there needs to be some sort of exam, like a driver's license, before people can get net access...
Not a bad idea, but who do you think would end up in charge of administering these exams? Yup, you guessed it, just another revenue stream for our friends in Redmond.

I think instead, there should be some sort of natural selection at work. If the lusers spreading Code Red and Nimda (not to mention Goner [slashdot.org]) were somehow made to pay for their transgressions, they might be motivated to learn how to be responsible netizens.

Why none of this matters.

[billybob]

The whole "no more excite@Home" thing doesnt mean anything. Oh, gee whiz, you mean I cant access their totally killer, @home-members-only, portal site anymore? Gosh, I'm depressed. Because I sure did visit that page a lot! Let me count the times.. one... one. The day i got cable modem. over 2 years ago.

I have a cable modem for the constant connection and the insane speed, not the internal content. I think they royally fucked up when they tried to do basically waht AOL does.

They paid nearly 7 billion dollars for excite a couple years ago. SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS. Does anyone realize how much money that is? Does anyone also realize what a waste of money that was? No one gets cable modem so they can use their shitty portal. If thats all youre going to do, you'd be fine with AOL. People get it for the speed and the constant connection. Imagine if @home had 7 more billion dollars right now. They probably wouldnt be in this situation.

So I could care less about what goes on between excite and at&t. were better off without excite. If this means at&t is 300 million dollars richer, maybe that will translate into less rate hikes in the future.

Re:Do the math

[brulman]

and Excite now has to pay to keep the network running for the next three months which will probably burn through most of the $320 million. AT&T had offered to absorb 300 employees and take $70 million in debt as well. Excite, their employees, AT&T, the customers AND the greedy bastard bondholders lose. what a bunch of assholes.

No surprise here

[SmittyTheBold]

Really, what would AT&T have to gain now? E@H is losing 50% or better of their user base in three months. They have lost a huge amount of money, and all AT&T would gain out of such a deal would be some additional infrastructure. So what? They're already well on their way to supporting all their users that used to be on @Home with their current infrastructure.

Not to mention the political side of it - Excite cut AT&T off, while the other companies remained connected. Pissing off a big company like that is not they way to convince them you're worthy of doing business with.

Re:Was it worth it ?

[SiriusRegalis]

What I or you pay is not the issue... It's ATT claiming they are doing me a favor when they are not.

I quote "Lightning fast download speeds" when by comparison they are not. This is not the service I signed up for. I spent quite a bit of time in research and talking to reps on the phone because we needed specific service and speeds. @home provided that.

Now ATT is acting like the @Home service wasn't worth the money. But from a customer's point of view it was worth even more. It all comes down to profits, which everything does in business. It's merely a case of extreme profits versus lower profits... still profit though. When having to have your cake and eat it to becomes "and I'll eat everyone else's" is when i have an issue with business. If the customer is prioritized as high as you profit margin, that's when everyone is happy.

ATT is getting a customer base from a company that provided superior service and expecting everyone to accept it. It's their way or the highway... only because they want BIG WHOPPING margins, when a small hit to the profit would still be profit.

And still on top of that, we're willing to pay gladly, so profits don't have to even take a hit. Offer me a premium service, then cap those that don't need it or want to pay. People by expensive foreign cars when a cheaper car would do... why not the same here?

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

[DrStrange]

I must start off by saying I am an AT&T Broadband customer who just got his service back after a 4 day absence. I could go on and on about what a poor decision the business people at AT&T and Excite made but that's be done to death. I'm posting to salute the network engineers who are moving 100's of thousands of subscribers per day! They have nothing to do with the business end of this whole mess but I have never seen a panic induced migration move so quickly! I have some choice words for people wearing suits in this but hey to you guys in jeans and a tshirt working ling hours in raised floor network offices, nice job.