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For the record 18 July
Thursday, July 18 2002
by Sylvia Leatham


AOL Time Warner shares drop following Washington Post report | ALTO issues
statement over government consultation paper on better regulation



ALTO, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators in Ireland, has
published its response submission to the Department of the Taoiseach's
consultation paper on better regulation. ALTO is pushing for regulation that
promotes a "competitive and vibrant" telecommunications industry and calling
on the government to recognise its responsibilities in promoting competition
within the sector. Highlighting the importance of regulation in the ICT sector as
the market moves from a single operator regime to a multi-operator environment,
ALTO says the lack of effective regulation is a major barrier to competition and
that the regulatory framework must be structured to support new entrants.







Western Europe's incumbent telecoms operators must look beyond their EUR240
billion debt and define their strategic options now, according to a report by
Analysys, an adviser on telecoms and new media. The report says that 14
incumbents had long-term debt at the end of 2001 ranging from around EUR1 billion
to EUR67 billion. "Management of long-term debt is clearly the principal driver
of incumbents' decision-making," said the report's author, Tamsin Pert. "But
they also need to consider how they can create value and maintain competitive
advantage in the longer term."





AOL Time Warner shares fell as much as 10 percent on expectations that the
media company will have a management shake-up and after a report claimed its
accounting may have overstated advertising sales. The company said last week it
is seeking a chief executive for its America Online Internet unit, currently run
by Chief Operating Officer Robert Pittman. The company's board is to consider
promoting Home Box Office chairman Jeff Bewkes and Time chairman Don Logan,
according to an AOL Time Warner executive. The Washington Post reported that
America Online used unconventional transactions to boost advertising revenue by
about USD270 million from July 2000 through March 2002. Shares in AOL Time Warner
fell USD0.75, or 5.7 percent, to USD12.36 in midmorning trading on Thursday.





Liberty Media has withdrawn its three non-executive directors from the
board of struggling cable company Telewest. Liberty said the move was to
ensure the avoidance of any conflict of interests during the upcoming talks on
Telewest's financial restructuring. In addition, Liberty said it had dropped its
offer to buy 20 percent of Telewest's bonds, because the cable operator's share
price had fallen too far. Telewest is under pressure to deal with STG5.3 billion
of debt.







A US man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for defrauding hundreds of
shoppers on eBay and Yahoo on-line auction sites, according to CNET
News.com. Thomas Houser received the sentence after pleading guilty to one count
of criminal mail fraud. More than 260 people lost almost USD100,000 after Houser
scammed them into buying electronics and other items through the "Houser Family
Store," and then failing to deliver the goods. Houser avoided detection by
moving from state to state, changing e-mail accounts and using a private mailbox,
prosecutors said.





Thirty cyber cafes in Beijing have been allowed to re-open under strict
conditions, following a fatal fire in one cafe last month, according to the
Xinhua news agency. The 30 are the first of about 2,400 Internet cafes in the
city to open their doors after the 16 June blaze at the Lanjisu Cyber Cafe, which
killed 25 young people. The newly re-opened cafes have agreed to strict new
rules, including a blanket ban on under-18s, a promise to close between midnight
and 8 am and a ban on violent video games.







Global enterprise storage providers EMC and Hewlett-Packard have
agreed to cross-license a number of storage system application programming
interfaces (APIs). The technology exchange aims to facilitate each company's
development of storage management applications. Both companies believe that this
type of exchange can serve as a model for agreements with other companies,
thereby accelerating the industry's progress towards interoperability. 





CellPoint, a global provider of mobile location software technology and
platforms, has developed a new product line for mobile presence network
information. The Mobile Presence Solution allows end-users to have their instant
messaging profiles automatically updated. It aims to provide companies utilising
fleet management or security applications with the ability to automatically
determine the availability of mobile units.