Lending a Helping Hand

Karen Brown

Broadband telecommunications is a game everyone seems to want to play these days, and now a company is aiming to help electric power utilities ante up.

R.W. Beck, a Seattle-based consulting and management firm for the energy industry, has created a new subsidiary dubbed BeckCONNECT to help utilities use their plant infrastructure to offer communications, Internet, cable and content services. It will provide business, marketing and technical consulting services, help with operations and network management and even partner with companies to build interconnecting fiber and gateway switch links to existing networks.

Many utilities see the potential of the telecommunications and Internet markets, but "once they get into it they discover running a telecommunications operation is a bit more sophisticated," said BeckCONNECT President Michael Farina.

But while potential exists in many markets such as Florida and Southern California, others will not prove viable for a utility given competition and the company's own customer service record, Farina said. So BeckCONNECT's job will occasionally have to be giving bad news to a client utility about the chances of fielding a competitive cable telecommunications operation.

"The financial model is like a gun," Farina said of the telecommunications climate. "You point it in the right direction and you get dinner. You point it in the wrong direction and you go to jail."

For utilities in a favorable market position, however, there is a potential to shift the playing field by offering something cable and telephone companies can't-bundled power utilities and telecommunications all in one package, Farina said.

"It really is the ability to change the competitive landscape," he said.

And BeckCONNECT plans to go along for the ride. Part of parent C.W. Beck's strategy in creating the subsidiary is to strengthen its own assets by buying into these telecommunications ventures.

"The mission in life for R.W. Beck is to become an asset-based business that isn't designed to be just a 'brains by the hour' operation," Farina said.

* Sensing a promising market for ethnic programming, both DBS providers are boosting their efforts to beam foreign-language channels into satellite TV homes.

DirecTV Inc., the DBS industry leader with more than 7.8 million subscribers, struck a deal in mid-December with Kelly Broadcasting Systems to carry up to 16 non-Hispanic foreign-language networks, starting later this winter. Under the multi-year agreement, DirecTV will distribute a wide range of premium services, including Russian, Chinese, Italian, Arabic, Lebanese, Asian/Indian and Korean networks.

EchoStar Communications Corp., with more than 3.2 million customers, plans to expand its ethnic offerings by taking over the assets of SkyView Media Group., a foreign-language programmer that recently failed. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey approved EchoStar's $23 million purchase of SkyView in mid-December.

* Macintosh users tired of life in a PC-dominated Internet world will get some high-speed relief in the form of a new digital subscriber line-based service created by Covad Communications Co. and Netopia Inc.

Covad, a nationwide competitive DSL provider, and Netopia, a DSL equipment maker, have launched a Mac-based Digital Subscriber Line service dubbed the MacDSL Center. It targets Mac users and is aimed at giving them a central resource for getting connected via DSL technology. It will provide information on DSL technology tailored to the Mac world and contacts with local Internet Service Providers offering Covad DSL service using Netopia equipment.

Mac Publishing, the magazine giant in the Mac world, has agreed to promote the center to its more than 2.5 million online users.

* Juno Online Services Inc. is teaming with Efficient Networks, Inc. to provide modems for the Internet Service Provider's new Juno Express broadband Digital Subscriber Line offering.

Juno plans to roll out the service in markets nationwide during 2000. The company will use Efficient's DSL modems and will take part in Efficient's SpeedStream Partner program, which provides ISPs with consumer premises equipment including modems and routers. Juno will field service through an agreement with Covad Communications Co. Covad is now testing markets for deployment.

* DirecTV plans to launch its AOL TV service in June at a yet undetermined price points, according to DirecTV President Eddy Hartenstein.

Speaking at the Jan. 5-9 Consumer Electronics Show, Hartenstein said although price points for the AOL set-top box and monthly service fee haven't been established "Clearly it's going to have to be competitive."

AOL TV will join TiVo and Wink as one of three interactive applications DirecTV plans to launch in the second quarter.

The DirecTV-AOL TV application showcased at CES included core AOL functions such as e-mail, chat, buddy lists and messaging, all accessed via a remote keyboard. Under an AOL TV channels category, consumers would be able to access both AOL and DirecTV television content. AOL currently has more than a dozen content deals with such cable and broadcast network providers as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, E! and CBS.

DirecTV signed up a record 250,000 new subs in December

* AT&T BIS swallowed up Palo Alto-based Cable Co-Op last week for a reported $70 million, giving the MSO about 90% of the Bay Area market with 1.4 million subscribers.

Member subscribers voted overwhelmingly to sell the 28,000 sub Bay Area co-op to the telecommunications giant. The deal calls for AT&T BIS to pay $53 million for the co-op's assets and $17 million to create a nonprofit multimedia center. The cabler has also committed to $20 million in upgrades.

* Former AT&T BIS CEO Leo Hindery appears to have hired away three former subordinates to work for him at GlobalCenter Inc. They are: AT&T BIS interactive chief Laurie Priddy; EVP-Corporate Development Derek Chang and EVP-adsales/AT&T Media Services Jerry Machovina.

* Ad spending in cable's top 10 national categories skyrocketed 41% for the year ending in September, according to Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau numbers. The figures show the strongest gains were in telecommunications, rising 93%, direct response, up 92% and computers and software, with a 60% increase. The lead automotive category rose 23%.

* It appears World Championship Wrestling is in strategic withdrawal from head-on competition with its red-hot rival, WWF Raw on Monday night. WCW last week ended its Monday Night Nitro wrestling program an hour early, carving out one hour of direct competition with its WWF nemesis. Officials at Turner Broadcasting Co. said the program was shortened to give writers and crew more breathing room to produce better shows.

* NBC Internet and home shopping operator ValueVision International Inc. entered into a marketing deal with ROXY.com to feature the consumer electronics maker on its SnapTV home shopping program and Internet portal, NBC's Internet Web properties and NBC television and radio programs. ValueVision and NBC Internet will acquire minority stakes in the privately held ROXY.com as part of the deal.