Creditors for @Home agreed to keep their service running another three
months for five cable companies hoping to migrate their customers at a
measured pace.
That’s good news for the roughly two million cable Internet subscribers who
would have been stranded without service while their cable companies
scrambled to get Internet services up and running on their own networks.
Tuesday’s ruling by Judge Thomas Carlson comes as no real surprise to
anyone involved, who actually
expected an agreement between all parties Friday, the original date set
for the $355 million deal put forth by Comcast Corp. ,
Cox Communications , Insight Communications
, Mediacom Commuications and Mid Continent Communications.
All five are currently in the middle of getting equipment and customer
support resources together in time to provide a seamless switch from @Home
to their own cable Internet service provider (ISP) service.
Lawyers for the bondholders and creditors, looking for a return on their
investment in Excite@Home, originally asked for more time to look over
details in the extension proposal, over assets which came down to little
more than $4 million.
Steve Burke, Comcast president, said the agreement is a win for his
customers, who don’t have to worry about a possible service
interruption. In fact, he said, Comcast will continue to acquire new
customers during the migration process.
“Today’s ruling is a win for our customers because their access to @Home
e-mail and the Internet will remain uninterrupted throughout the seamless
transition from @Home to our new Comcast High-Speed Internet network,” he
said. “Our ability to add new subscribers also remains uninterrupted.”