Bad news for @Home Customers

Great Dane · 30 Nov 2001

From CNN.com (http://money.cnn.com/2001/11/30/technology/excite/)

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A bankruptcy judge cleared the way for Excite@Home to turn off its Internet cable service as early as midnight Friday, but expressed confidence that the company could renegotiate contracts with cable companies to prevent interruption of service for its 4.2 million subscribers.

On late Friday afternoon, Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Carlson handed a victory to Excite@Home's bondholders, who had contested a $307 million buyout offer by AT&T Corp. for the once high-flying company.

The judge said Excite's bondholders have the right to negotiate a better offer, but AT&T (T: Research, Estimates) so far has not sweetened the deal it first made when Excite@Home, the nation's No.5 Internet service provider, filed chapter 11 bankruptcy in late September.

The cable companies that connect their customers to the Excite@Home network said they plan to appeal the decision to U.S. District Court in San Francisco as soon as possible.

Judge Carlson said millions of Excite customers could be out of luck if no deal is reached, but concluded the contracts had become "clearly burdensome" to Excite. Under the contracts, executives said Excite was losing up to $6 million a week.

Talks between Excite, its creditors and cable companies, including AT&T Broadband, Cox Communications Inc. (COX: Research, Estimates) and Comcast Corp. (CMCSK: Research, Estimates), are under way in a bid for a new deal before the midnight deadline, attorneys at the bankruptcy court said.
Click to expand...

Rayzer · 30 Nov 2001

Me with AOL/Time Warner, I good.

Desperado · 3 Dec 2001

Yes this would include my brand spankin new cable I just got two weeks ago that I now can't use. They quoted us today 7-10 days before they get it back up and running here. Seeing as how ATT's time frame usually needs to be multipied by a few weeks, I figured we'd be out of cable for at least a month or two. However it is encouraging to read earlier today that they had migrated 10% of their customers over to the new network in a day and they're up to 40% in three days so I am hopeful again. They are supposed to get Chicago and parts of Michigan tonight/tomorrow where I'm right in the middle so maybe soon.

Not that I can use my computer anyway though, my motherboard has a short that's causing it to reboot every 5-ish minutes so I have to replace that. Just when I get cable and am about to get back in Tribes, everything computer related goes to hell. Doh!

mtx · 3 Dec 2001

Wow the rebooting motherboard.

Log in / Register

Forums

Bad news for @Home Customers

Great Dane <B><FONT COLOR="RED">THE LEGENDARY BANNED</FONT></

Rayzer

Desperado

mtx Official Decepticon

Share This Page