Excite@home goes to the wall

NEWS Excite@home has finally accepted the inevitable and filed for bankruptcy protection over the weekend, but it's not all bad news: it has struck an agreement to sell its broadband network to AT&T in a deal worth $307m, while the UK operations carry on regardless. The demise of the US-based net access and portal outfit is one of the biggest of all dot-com casualties, but the move comes as no surprise: having posted losses of $7.4bn in 2000, the future of the company has long been in jeopardy. Just last Tuesday it announced that 500 jobs were to go in a bid to stay afloat, a decision many industry watchers believed signalled imminent bankruptcy. The company claims to have enough funds to finance its operations - including employee obligations - while the bankruptcy court reviews the proposed sale of the network. AT&T is thought to be interested only in the physical assets of Excite@home, meaning the portal business will either be resold or disappear altogether. Excite's UK operations, which are owned jointly by BT and Excite@home, remain unaffected. Patti Hart, Excite@Home chairman and chief executive, said in a statement: "This filing is a tool to protect the value of the broadband business for the benefit of the company's financial stakeholders and will help reassure our customers that service will continue uninterrupted through the restructuring process. AT&T's offer reflects the value in our network, services, customer base and skilled employees." Meanwhile, AT&T and Comcast signed an agreement on Friday that could see Comcast pay $37.8 billion for AT&T Broadband, a deal likely to include the Excite@Home assets.