@Home ordered to shutdown at Midnight

Sun Dec 2 15:34:24 UTC 2001

At 3:37 AM -0500 12/2/01, Sean Donelan wrote:
>On Sat, 1 Dec 2001, Matthew S. Hallacy wrote:
>>  I've had no problems, apparently some people are on AT&T @Home, while
>>  others are on AT&T Broadband, I am an AT&T Broadband customer, some of
>>  my friends (Atlanta, Seattle) are AT&T @Home customers who no longer
>>  have access, AT&T claims that everyone who lost access lastnight will
>>  be online with AT&T Broadband within ~10 days.
>
>Dumb question.  If AT&T knows it will take them 10 days to fix their
>network, why didn't they start 11 days ago?  If AT&T had done that, it
>would have been finished already.  I guess I will never understand
>the logic used by telephone companies.
>
>On the other hand, I don't understand what this gets Excite at Home's
>creditors.  Once AT&T transfers its subscribers to a new network, why
>does it need @Home's network assets.  Over the next 10 days, @Home's
>value to AT&T drops to zero.

Because AT&T didn't have the right to break the contract (by 
essentially "Stealing" @H customers), only E at H had that discretion 
(as the party to whom the contract was "unbearable"). So until AT&T's 
contract expired or was terminated, AT&T had to stick to it, but now 
that the contract is terminated, they can haul ass converting the 
users over to their own system.

At least that's my non-lawyer interpretation, given the various 
stories I've read. :-)

D

-- 
+---------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| dredd at megacity.org  | "Thou art the ruins of the noblest man  |
|  Derek J. Balling   |  That ever lived in the tide of times.  |
|                     |  Woe to the hand that shed this costly  |
|                     |  blood" - Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1  |
+---------------------+-----------------------------------------+