FOR RELEASE MONDAY JUNE 17, 2002

Transaction Expands Proxim’s Leadership Position in Wireless Networking Infrastructure Warburg Pincus and Broadview Capital to Invest in Proxim in Support of the Acquisition Sale Will Allow Agere To Sharpen Strategic Focus On 802.11/Wi-Fiâ„¢ Components SUNNYVALE, Calif. and ALLENTOWN, Pa. – June 17, 2002–Proxim Corporation (Nasdaq: PROX), a leading manufacturer of wireless networking equipment, and Agere Systems (NYSE: AGR.A, AGR.B), the world leader in communications components, today announced that Proxim has agreed to acquire the 802.11 wireless local area network (LAN) equipment business of Agere Systems, including its ORiNOCO product line, for $65 million in cash.

With the addition of ORiNOCO, Proxim will be the premier wireless equipment company with leadership positions in 802.11 enterprise LAN, public wireless access, distributed broadband and carrier-grade wireless backhaul systems markets. Under the agreement, Proxim will acquire assets primarily used by Agere in its wireless LAN equipment business, including a broad offering of wireless LAN products used in homes, small offices, enterprises, service providers and outdoor environments. Agere will retain its 802.11/Wi-Fi chips, modules, and cards business, representing the majority of Agere’s total Wi-Fi business. The sale will allow Agere to sharpen its focus on providing Wi-Fi component solutions for the emerging wireless computing, networking and entertainment markets.

“This transaction provides the scale, scope and depth that will allow us to continue our consolidation of the wireless infrastructure business, and to fulfill our vision of integrated wireless connectivity from the core network to devices in a home, office or public space,” said Jonathan Zakin, Proxim Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Upon closing of this transaction, we will provide investors with the broadest wireless pure play in the industry.”

The transaction enables the company to immediately realize revenues from the world’s largest installed user base of 802.11b infrastructure, which can in turn be upgraded to 802.11a technology over time. It also allows Proxim to accelerate revenues in the wireless WAN business by two quarters or more with a complete product line for the low-end bridging and last mile access markets. As a result, the company expects the transaction to be accretive in the first full operating quarter following the close. Agere and Proxim anticipate closing the transaction within 60 days, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.

“In terms of positioning, customer base, technology portfolio and talent, this acquisition brings Proxim to the forefront of the wireless networking infrastructure businesses,” said David King, Proxim Corporation President and Chief Operating Officer. “With ORiNOCO, we obtain market leadership in 802.11b Wi-Fi enterprise network equipment, which complements Proxim’s leadership position in 802.11a WLAN solutions. In addition, ORiNOCO gives us a blue-chip strategic alliance portfolio as well as industry leadership in the growing WLAN public access “hot spot’ market.”

Agere and Proxim have also agreed to enter into a three-year strategic supply agreement under which Agere will provide chips, modules and cards to Proxim, a license agreement for Agere technology used in the ORiNOCO business and a broad patent cross-license agreement for their respective patent portfolios including settlement of the pending patent-related litigation between the two companies. Agere’s new strategic supply agreement with Proxim represents a new engagement with a leading wireless LAN equipment provider.

Agere developed key technology that led to the evolution of 802.11, and today is the leading provider of wireless data solutions to all of the world’s major PC makers. The company will continue to provide wireless data chips, modules and cards for this market segment. Going forward, Agere intends to deliver Wi-Fi components that will help reduce costs for customers so that they can deploy this technology in a wide range of high-volume computing, networking and entertainment markets.

“The sale will allow us to strengthen our relationships with key customers and sharpen our strategic focus on our core Wi-Fi chip business,” said Ron Black, executive vice president of Agere’s Client Systems Group. “Our Wi-Fi components are fundamental to meeting the growing demand for increased wireless data connectivity. Today’s action is a solid step forward in realizing our vision for ubiquitous, wireless broadband access at home, at work, and on the go.”

Warburg Pincus and Broadview Capital Partners To Invest in Proxim Warburg

Pincus and Broadview Capital Partners have agreed to collectively invest $75 million in Proxim to finance the acquisition. “We are excited about ProximÆs strategy to build the business and the impact the ORiNOCO acquisition will have upon accelerating the company’s roadmap,” said Larry Bettino, a Warburg Pincus Managing Director. “We support the vision of the Proxim management team and are firm believers in the compelling prospects of the wireless equipment market.”

The two investors will be issued convertible preferred stock in the amount of approximately $41 million, with a conversion price of $3.06 per share. The remaining $34 million of the investment will be in the form of a note that will convert, upon stockholder approval, into additional shares of the convertible preferred stock. Additionally, the investors will be granted warrants to acquire 12,271,345 shares of common stock for $3.06 per share. A portion of the warrants will be conditioned upon receipt of stockholder approval. Upon stockholder approval, the preferred stock and warrants issued to Warburg Pincus and Broadview are expected to represent approximately 28% of Proxim’s outstanding common stock on an as-converted and as-exercised basis.

Within three months of the closing of the transaction, Proxim plans to call a special stockholders’ meeting to approve the conversion of the convertible note and issuance of conditional warrants.

Proxim’s largest stockholder, affiliates of Ripplewood Holdings LLC, and Jonathan Zakin, Proxim’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, have agreed to vote their shares of common stock in favor of these proposals at the special stockholders’ meeting. They currently have the power to vote approximately 32% of Proxim’s outstanding common stock.

Broadview International LLC served as financial advisor to Proxim in its negotiations with Agere. Credit Suisse First Boston Corporation served as financial advisor to Proxim in its negotiations to secure the acquisition financing. JP Morgan served as financial advisor to Agere.

Conference Call/Webcast Information

Proxim Corporation and Agere Systems will each host teleconferences today to discuss the sale. Proxim’s teleconference will be available live and via replay through Proxim’s Web site at www.proxim.com. Agere’s teleconference will be available live and via replay through Agere’s Web site at www.agere.com. The minimum requirements to listen include sound capabilities on your personal computer and installation of RealPlayer software available at no cost for Windows 95/98, Windows 3.1, Windows NT, Macintosh, and UNIX systems from Real Audio, www.real.com.

Conference Call Information for Proxim Corporation

Today’s call begins at 8:30 am EDT/5:30 am PDT

Dial-In Information:

To listen to the conference call via telephone, dial 913-981-4910 at least five minutes prior to the scheduled start time.

Additionally, the conference call will be available on a recorded telephone archive by calling toll free 888-203-1112 and entering pass code 747653, beginning Monday, June 17, 2002 at Noon, EDT until 8:00 PM EDT on Thursday, June 20, 2002. For international callers, the recorded telephone archive is available by calling the following toll number: 719-457-0820 and entering pass code 747653.

———–

Will AOL Go The Way Of The Model T? Mark Lewis, 04.19.02, 12:40 PM ET FORBES MAGAZINE

Is Robert Pittman following in Henry Ford’s footsteps? If so, that may not be good news for AOL Time Warner shareholders.

Ford was a revolutionary who changed the world, only to grow complacent and eventually lose his industry leadership position. His wildly successful Model T car put the horse and buggy out of business, but then Ford stuck with the Model T too long while rivals stole customers by adding bells and whistles.

Pittman, co-chief operating officer for AOL (nyse: AOL – news – people ), may be on the verge of making a similar mistake. Pittman has taken direct control of the firm’s America Online unit, which has been plagued by slow growth as Internet dial-up customers defect to rivals offering high-speed broadband connections. America Online has made slow progress in migrating its huge base of dial-up customers to its own broadband offerings.

Now AOL reportedly is retrenching. Friday’s Wall Street Journal reports that the media conglomerate “is rethinking its cornerstone strategy of promoting such broadband access nationwide.” The paper quotes Pittman to the effect that America Online should focus on getting its current customers to retain their AOL dial-up service, even after they have signed up for broadband service from a rival firm.

Apparently, Pittman has been pleasantly surprised by the number of AOL customers who have retained their dial-up service as a kind of backup to their broadband service. “A lot of companies go broke trying to speed up the consumer adoption curve,” Pittman told the Journal. Whereas AOL will happily milk its high-margin base of dial-up customers for as long as these folks are willing to keep sending in their monthly $23.90.

The problem is that as broadband gains mass acceptance, even technophobes will eventually gain the confidence to venture out beyond the reassuring confines of AOL’s walled garden. And broadband is gaining momentum. On Friday, BellSouth (nyse: BLS – news – people ) reported that it added another 108,000 digital subscriber line (DSL) customers during the first quarter, bringing its total to 729,000. Earlier this week, SBC Communications (nyse: SBC – news – people ) said it added 183,000 subscribers during the quarter to push its total to 1.5 million. The cable firms–and AOL’s own Time Warner cable unit–continue to push ahead with broadband, and EchoStar Communications (nasdaq: DISH – news – people ) has pledged to offer satellite broadband access nationwide if federal regulators will approve its proposed acquisition of DirecTV.

AOL finds itself in a tough spot, little more than a year after closing on its acquisition of Time Warner. That deal was supposed to create a content-and-distribution colossus, but the Internet distribution part of the equation has not yet worked out as promised, so the stock price has shriveled. Already there is talk on Wall Street that AOL should spin off its online unit and revert to a content-and-cable play.

Neither Pittman nor his boss, AOL Chairman Steve Case, seem eager to embrace that idea. “The promise of the merger remains intact,” Case told the Journal. “We just hit a speed bump.” AOL’s soon-to-be chief executive, Richard Parsons, also defended the merger. So it’s full speed ahead–except that Pittman seems to be keeping one foot on the brake by talking about a renewed focus on maintaining that dial-up base.

Perhaps he is correct. And that Henry Ford analogy may not be such a dire portent, since even after losing its leadership position, Ford Motor (nyse: F – news – people ) eventually moved beyond the Model T and continued to be a profitable business (at least until recently).

But when AOL acquired Time Warner, it had grander things in mind than to merely continue as a profitable firm. This merger was supposed to remake the media environment. It was all about the future, whereas dial-up service is well on the way to being a relic from the past–like the Model T. When even the stodgy old Baby Bells are talking up broadband, does Bob Pittman really want to be known as Mr. Dial-Up? He is right that AOL should make as much money as possible from dial-up before it goes away. But that hardly sounds like the centerpiece of a visionary growth strategy.

-Ian.

———–

http://biz.yahoo.com/fo/020228/0228telecoms_1.html

Thursday February 28, 1:27 pm Eastern Time

Forbes.com Bells Are Ringing, But Too Soon By Mark Lewis

Despite the Baby Bells’ victory in the House of Representatives yesterday, Congress is hardly on the verge of unleashing the Bells by scrapping the Telecommunications Act of 1996. But the overall trend is toward deregulation, so the House action apparently encouraged investors to play the consolidation angle today by snapping up every telecom issue in sight.   The four Bells were up in morning trading–but so were the three major long-distance carriers, which had bitterly opposed the Tauzin-Dingell bill that passed the House yesterday. The bill, which would let the Bells carry long-distance data traffic, now faces a cold reception in the Senate. But rejection there would not leave the Bells permanently shackled, since the Federal Communications Commission is busy loosening its rules governing media and telecom companies. The federal courts and the FCC clearly are not waiting for Congress to act; they are moving on their own to deregulate the communications market.

The signs all point toward further consolidation, although it is not yet clear who will be swallowing whom. This morning, investors seem to be playing all the angles at once. They were buying the Bells, led by Verizon Communications and SBC Communications ; the long-distance carriers, including AT&T and WorldCom ; and all the big media conglomerates other than Walt Disney , which fell into disfavor after being whacked today by a Goldman Sachs analyst.

Investors might be better off waiting for the smoke to clear. “The courts and the FCC continue to relax various telecom and media restrictions, but we caution investors not to base their strategy on any single rule change, as it is the combination of all the rule changes and the reaction of industry players that will determine the winners and losers,” Legg Mason analyst Blair Levin said today in a research note. “While we continue to believe the trend will produce more consolidation over time, we do not expect an immediate flood of deals.”

In effect, the Tauzin-Dingell bill is just an opening shot in a long war over how to rewrite the Telecommunications Act, which has not worked out as hoped. Everybody wants to push the Internet Revolution on to its next stage, in which broadband access is universal and the longed-for convergence of voice, video and data services finally becomes a reality. But there is no real consensus yet about how to get there. The Bells, which were expected to wither away, are still standing tall, while those nimble upstarts founded in the wake of the 1996 act are dropping like flies.

Amid such chaos there is opportunity, but investors may be overreacting today. The Bells’ victory in the House does not herald a new dawn for the telecom sector. It is just another move in the ongoing chess game over the 1996 telecom law.

—— Forwarded Message From: Pablo Bose Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 13:53:19 -0500 (EST) To: Ian Andrew Bell Cc: Gordon Ross , Bryan Robertson , Adam Wood-Gaines , Kim Morrice , James Rothney , Subject: Re: @F: Does Fast Internet Need a Push?

Do Full Stomachs Need a Push?

By Tokalogu Chumbawamba New Alipore Slum Circular Staff Writer Tuesday, January 15, 2002; Page A01

At a recent Calcutta meal cooked over a dung-stoked fire, four slum dwellers compared notes about the food stored in their home larders.

One is a senior rock-breaker at the State Happy Quarries. One has forty-five years of experience pressing fresh cow dung into hand-sized patties to be baked on the outside of slum walls. One lobbies passersby not to throw stones at his face as they pass his hovel, and one pulls a rickshaw full of sweaty tourists around the dirty streets of Calcutta.

Yet only one of them has any food at home.

This drives Sugit Sarkar nuts. Sarkar, assistant secretary for the ministry of the distribution of tiny packages of spoiled food in Calcutta, tells the story to illustrate the challenge of convincing Americans that for the vast majority of people around the world, mere subsistence–rather than technological wizardry–is the only big thing (Sarkar has a cupboard filled with at least six cans of baked beans). If these people don’t have food, what good will broadband access do them?

I could go on but I don’t want to belabour the point. The surreality of the distance between our lived experience and that of the vast majority who live outside the boundaries of the elites, whether in the North or the South, become increasingly bizarre.

Pablo

—— End of Forwarded Message

Does Fast Internet Need a Push? High-Speed Access Seen as Economic Catalyst

By Jonathan Krim Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 15, 2002; Page A01

At a recent Washington dinner, four high-tech heavyweights compared notes about their home computer systems.

One is a top technologist at the Federal Communications Commission. One lobbies for high-speed Internet access on behalf of a Silicon Valley trade group. One is a senior legal adviser to the FCC, and one is a senior Commerce Department official for tech policy.

Yet only one of them has high-speed Internet access at home.

This drives Bruce Mehlman nuts. Mehlman, assistant secretary of commerce for technology policy, tells the story to illustrate the challenge of convincing Americans that broadband is the next big thing. (Mehlman has cable-modem service and a wireless network in his house.) If these people don’t want or need it, who will?

High-speed Internet access, otherwise known as broadband, has long been touted to consumers as an always-connected nirvana, eliminating the hassle of dial-up modems and allowing users to take full advantage of the Internet — downloading movies, perhaps even attending college classes remotely.

Now, broadband is a new battle cry in Washington, as the country struggles with the post-Internet-bubble, post-Sept. 11 recession.

More broadband is an economic priority for the Bush administration, said Mehlman, a former policy strategist for the networking company Cisco Systems Inc. Late last year, FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell began an intensive review of all regulations that affect broadband deployment. And just last week, Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) called for universal broadband access as one of his party’s recommendations for economic revival.

Today, the technology industry plans to launch a major lobbying effort to get the federal government to set national targets for broadband rollout and adoption. Often competitors in the marketplace, tech companies are united in their view that broadband could be a catalyst not just for recovery of their own battered sector but also for the next economic boom.

But whether, and how, the government should push broadband along will be fiercely debated. The broadband highway is littered with special interests and strewn with potholes. Like Mehlman’s dinner companions, most Americans so far are staying off the road.

To date, roughly 80 percent of the country’s homes have broadband service available to them — via cable lines, satellite or souped-up telephone lines (known as digital subscriber lines, or DSL). Yet only about 10 percent, or 10 million homes, have signed up.

The number of subscribers has risen steadily since broadband became widely available five years ago, but the rate of growth slowed last year. In the first quarter of 2001, the number of subscribers increased 27 percent from the previous quarter. It increased 17 percent in the second quarter and 13 percent in the third, according to Jupiter Media Metrix Inc.

In a recent test in LaGrange, Ga., 13,000 of the town’s homes were offered broadband, free of charge, for a year. Only half the town wanted it.

For those who decide they want broadband, it can take weeks for service to begin once it has been ordered. Self-installation kits can lead to hours of tech-support calls. Recently, hundreds of thousands of broadband subscribers were temporarily cut off from their cable-modem service after Internet access provider At Home Corp. declared bankruptcy.

“I’m really irritated with the whole thing,” said Angelene Hernandez, a licensed massage therapist in Phoenix who is a Cox Communications Inc. customer. Hernandez said that although her high-speed connection is helpful for linking with the college where she is taking classes, the months-long service problems she has encountered are beginning to outweigh the convenience.

Even without such problems, the general price tag for broadband, $40 to $50 a month, has kept away many consumers. Increasing numbers already have it at work and don’t see the need for another connection. For others, broadband has yet to deliver anything exciting beyond always-on connections and faster surfing and downloading speeds.

“There’s no broadband content yet that is especially compelling,” said Jeff Eisenach, president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank that supports widespread rollout of the technology.

One major obstacle is that current broadband technology is not fast enough to enable the kinds of whiz-bang, video-intensive applications that will help drive consumer use.

At current broadband speeds “it would take longer to download a movie than to go to a video store and rent it,” Rick Lane, vice president of government affairs for entertainment and media giant News Corp., said at a recent broadband summit.

Even if the speed were there, the major studios are not making their video entertainment available online until they are certain it cannot be pirated.

One of the biggest early drivers of broadband adoption was Napster Inc., the Internet service company that enabled users to download and swap music files. But the service was all but shut down by the recording industry, which won injunctions against what it claimed was theft of copyrighted works.

Some believe that unless copyright restrictions are adapted to enable individual file sharing, broadband adoption will be stunted.

Still, no one argues broadband’s potential. Large companies have benefited for years from networked high-speed access. Now, residential-level broadband service is essential to many small and home-based businesses, which rely on the Internet for conducting commerce.

Mehlman and other broadband evangelists argue that the current sign-up rate is not out of line with consumer adoption of new technologies in the past, including telephones and televisions.

For individuals, the benefits range far beyond entertainment, proponents say. Were broadband ubiquitous, startling advances would be possible in such areas as education and medical care via videoconferencing. Government services could be transformed, and telecommuting would become commonplace, saving energy, cutting road-maintenance costs and reducing pollution.

Michigan, for example, just created a virtual state court, where lawyers can file briefs online and put in their court appearances by teleconference.

For the technology industry, still clawing its way back from the depths of its implosion, broadband offers the best hope for a return to the days of robust growth. Higher-speed connections drive a continuing need for more powerful computers with faster chips, new forms of networking equipment and expanded software applications, generating sales throughout the technology food chain.

“You have to have broadband for the economy to really take the next big bite,” said Matthew Flanigan, president of the Telecommunications Industry Association, which represents equipment manufacturers. “It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

In a study published last summer, Brookings Institution economist Robert Crandall estimated that if broadband use were universal, it could be worth as much as $300 billion a year to the U.S. economy.

Such projections have been widely touted by local phone companies such as Verizon Communications Inc., which paid for the study, to bolster their arguments that government should do everything in its power to promote broadband rollout.

But there is hardly consensus on the best way to increase rollout of high-speed connections, reduce prices and spur broadband demand.

Several bills in Congress offer various stimulative prescriptions, from investment tax credits to deregulation, that proponents claim will spur faster broadband deployment. Many of these have languished, however, polarized by what one lobbyist calls the “telecom food fights” between telephone and cable companies that are jockeying for maximum advantage in selling broadband service.

The phone companies continue to push legislation, sponsored by Reps. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.) and John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), that would remove a number of regulations that govern how much the companies must open their lines for use by competitors. The bill also would allow the companies to enter the market for carrying long-distance data without opening their local markets to competition, as is currently required.

The phone companies argue that these restrictions dampen their incentive to invest in rolling out more broadband service.

Long-distance and cable companies such as AT&T Corp. strenuously object, as do competitors, who say that the regional phone giants are dragging their feet in sharing their lines with competitors.

Today, TechNet, a potent network of 300 senior executives from large and small technology firms, venture capitalists and investment bankers, plans to call on Washington to drop those battles. Instead, the group, whose members include Cisco, International Business Machines Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp., will call not only for national targets for broadband adoption but also for commitment to an “advanced broadband” that is at least 100 times as fast as what exists today.

The group will not seek tax incentives for industry, nor will it seek legislation that benefits a particular technology.

“No one knows what the technological solution is going to be” to increase broadband speed, said Rick White, a former congressman who is the president and chief executive of TechNet. But the group will urge legislation to clear a path for higher-speed lines to be built, by overriding certain state and local land-use restrictions.

“What we’re seeing right now are interim technologies . . . makeshift adaptations,” White said. “We need to leap over that and set very ambitious goals by the end of the decade.”

Next week, the Computer Systems Policy Project, a smaller group of computer and chip manufacturing companies headed by Michael S. Dell, founder of Dell Computer Corp., plans to make a similar pitch and meet with congressional and administration officials.

Others argue that the way to ensure more broadband is for government to guarantee competition.

“Monopolists have been allowed to control the pace of rollout,” said Mark Cooper, research director of the Consumer Federation of America. Cooper said that subsidizing a small group of telecommunications giants, through tax credits or anti-competitive deregulation, is “the Soviet model for growth.”

Instead, he said, the government should focus on reducing prices and increasing choice, particularly when there is so much more broadband available than there are people who are signing up for it.

“The capitalist model is to squeeze out all the demand first,” Cooper said. That way, “the companies minimize their risk and maximize their return on their existing set of assets.”

Staff writer Christopher Stern contributed to this report.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

I am the broadband Bermuda Triangle Internet service providers beware: I have powers to invoke bankruptcy beyond the ken of mortal man.

– – – – – – – – – – – – By Mike Masnick

Dec. 6, 2001 | I am the broadband Bermuda Triangle. Offer me a broadband connection, and your company is doomed to fail. If I even ask about your broadband service, start reading up on how to file for bankruptcy protection. Originally, I did not believe it was my fault, but after getting kicked off five different systems in the past 10 months, there is only one obvious factor in common: me.

The U.S. government says it is working on ways to stimulate broadband growth. I have a solution: kick me out of the country. With that one, simple move, broadband will again be free to thrive and grow and help boost the rest of the sagging tech sector.

A year ago, broadband was still considered the “next big thing.” I decided it was time to join the 21st century, and thus began Hurricane Mike’s path of broadband destruction.

It began, simply enough, last December when I signed up for Northpoint DSL through Megapath, a popular broadband ISP. Northpoint, of course, was one of the “big three” wholesalers of DSL service (along with Rhythms and Covad).

Once my connection was up and running, it only took two weeks for Northpoint to declare bankruptcy.

This brings up my second evil power: I turn employees at broadband ISPs into liars. I spoke with a vice president at Megapath the day after Northpoint declared bankruptcy, asking what it all meant. He explained that there was “zero” chance I would lose my broadband connection since they knew this was coming and they had “contingency” plans in place and ready to go.

It turns out that contingency plans mean many different things to many different people.

For Megapath, contingency plans apparently meant waiting until Northpoint shut down their network completely before preparing for alternatives. The end result was nearly two months without broadband access, while I waited for Megapath to set me up with Bachelor No. 2 in the DSL dating game: RhythmsNet Connections.

A few days before RhythmsNet turned on my new account, I started reading reports of financial difficulties at Rhythms. I called Megapath again, where I was told (repeatedly!) that Rhythms was a “solid” company — especially now that it had taken on so much of Northpoint’s lost business. I told the guy about my experience with Northpoint going out of business, and he said, “Yeah, that was a surprise because they were a really solid company.” Like “contingency,” apparently “solid” means very different things to different people. It was at this point that I knew Rhythms was doomed and cancelled the service soon afterwards (just slightly before they declared bankruptcy and shut down their network).

I then started relying solely on my Metricom Ricochet wireless broadband connection provided by the ISP Wireless Web Connect. I was assured, again, that WWC was working on “contingency” plans should Metricom shut down — which it soon did.

For Wireless Web Connect, contingency plans meant begging Ricochet users to e-mail technology reporters urging them to write stories about how we all missed Ricochet.

Once it was clear that the Ricochet network was not coming back to life, I started to look at other options. Covad, having seen the damage I had done to Northpoint and Rhythms, declared preemptive bankruptcy in a successful attempt to play dead and have me pass them by.

PacBell (the local phone company) had apparently heard about my powers as well and told me “we don’t cover” my area (despite the fact my former DSL lines were provisioned from PacBell).

As if sensing my need for something different, a postcard arrived telling me about the wonders of Sprint’s “Fixed Wireless” broadband option that would place a pizza-box-sized receiver on top of my house and give me all the advantages of a broadband connection. I called up Sprint on a Friday and a representative confirmed that it was available in my area. I hesitated before signing up so I could spend the weekend researching the offering, and determining whether or not my neighborhood homeowner’s association would freak out at the pizza box on my roof.

Sprint apparently spent its weekend researching me, as well. When I called back Monday morning to sign up, the woman I spoke to told me it was no longer available where I lived. I pointed out that it had been available three days earlier, and she spun a wonderful story about how they were doing “technical improvements” in my region, and would call me when they were offering it again. A few days later Sprint admitted it had felt my touch of death and announced it was getting out of the fixed wireless business completely.

My magic powers had worked wonders again.

I had now destroyed two (possibly three) DSL companies and two wireless broadband offerings. That was when I heard that Excite@Home (whose headquarters are almost within rock-throwing distance of my house) was filing for bankruptcy. How could this be? I hadn’t even thought about signing up for their service. However, in a delusional epiphany I thought if Excite had already declared bankruptcy, perhaps the Bermuda Triangle of broadband would work in reverse and I could save them by signing up.

I called AT&T Broadband (which provides the service here) and asked them what the Excite@Home bankruptcy meant for me as a potential customer. A very nice, yet very clueless woman explained to me that (1) I had nothing to worry about, (2) it wasn’t “Excite@Home” that was bankrupt, but merely Excite.com, (3) “The company isn’t bankrupt, they’re just financially restructuring” and (4) no matter what happened, AT&T had “contingency” plans that would involve no downtime. When pressed for her definition of contingency plans, she refused to go into detail.

I had learned my lesson about these so-called contingency plans. I also knew that most of the other points the woman had told me were complete hogwash, so I did some additional research on my own. I read where Mike Paxton, a cable analyst with Cahners-Instat, said that @Home subscribers are “not going to wake up and find they don’t have cable broadband anymore.”

Here was an official “cable analyst” telling me I would wake up each morning happily surfing at high speeds. Believing the expert, I signed up for service on Halloween.

This past Saturday morning, a month after I first started using AT&T@Home, I woke up and found I didn’t have cable broadband any more.

Mr. Paxton kindly answered my e-mail demanding an explanation, saying, “the situation had changed” since he made his original comments. Of course it had changed! I had signed up for the service — signaling the end of any hope for Excite@Home. Mr. Paxton, it appears, was unaware of the powers of my broadband blackhole.

I have learned my lesson. I am no longer looking for any new broadband providers, but if the U.S. government wants to stimulate broadband acceptance in this country, they should do the only sensible thing. Get me out of here. I am willing to be the sacrificial lamb for the broadband industry (and by association) the tech sector as a whole. If the government would like, I would even consider ruining broadband connections in other countries around the world. It’s too bad the Taliban aren’t heavy users of cable modems.

– – – – – – – – – – – – About the writer When not destroying broadband companies, Mike Masnick helps tech executives avoid information overload at Techdirt.