@HOME IMPROVEMENT Canadian, Teleport deals swell service's reach

The @Home network expanded at home and abroad last week, as the company signed key agreements with Canada's two largest multiple systems operators and with U.S. competitive access provider Teleport Communications Group.

Rogers Cablesystems and Shaw Communications will jointly acquire 5% of the cable modem service, extending @Home's reach to nearly half the Canadian cable market.

Rogers and Shaw also plan to forge affiliate relationships with 10 other cable operators through a consortium of Canadian MSOs called Vision.com. The move would extend the service's reach to nearly 95% of the country.

Rogers already offers a cable modem service called Wave to about 3000 customers. The @Home deal will build on that service, said Frank Cotter, vice president of operations and general manager at Rogers.

Rogers decided that @Home is best equipped to solve the problem of the Internet's vagaries because of its local caching and distributed architecture, Cotter said.

Rogers and Shaw will provide network connections within Canada using @Home's standards and specifications, said Dean Gilbert, senior vice president and general manager of @Home. The Canadian service, which will be marketed as Wave@Home, will then connect to @Home's U.S backbone. Rogers and Shaw will also leverage @Home's user interface and authoring software to create content that is unique to Canada, Gilbert said.

With their investment in @Home, the Canadian companies join American MSOs Tele-Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications, all of which are rolling out @Home service in selected markets. Rogers and Shaw opted to buy a piece of the company-rather than strike an affiliate relationship, as other U.S. cable operators have done-because they want an active role in @Home's future, said Michael D'Avella, senior vice president of planning at Shaw. @Home has other international partnerships in the works, Gilbert said, but he declined to be more specific.

One analyst sees @Home's decision as a necessary strategy. "@Home has to extend its reach to counter the slow deployment of cable modem services here in the U.S.," said John Aronsohn, senior analyst at The Yankee Group. "It has to sign up a reasonable amount of subscribers to justify its investment in the infrastructure, and up to now, it certainly hasn't met that number in this country.

The @Work division of @Home has found a way to bypass its partners' slow deployment speeds.

Through its partnership with Teleport, @Work will have access to business customers in more than 55 major cities, as well as 160 markets accessible to Teleport through its investment in 38 GHz wireless carrier BizTel.

Teleport will provide facilities management, switching and network services for @Work's local transport portion, giving the division a way to bypass the incumbent Bell regional holding companies.

"Partnering with Teleport gives us the reach for that last mile to corporate customers around the country," said Don Hutchinson, senior vice president and general manager of @Work.

@Work will use digital subscriber line (DSL) technology to connect employees to their corporate networks from home.

"Near-term, cable is the way to go, but where we don't have a cable presence, we will use DSL," Hutchinson said.