Fitch upped its ratings of what it said it presumed would be new ...

deal by end of year. Following announcement of merger, Fitch put Comcast, Comcast Cable, TCI and MediaOne Group on rating watch negative. It said Tues. that negative watch would be resolved at deal’s closing and it then would assign BBB rating to senior unsecured debt obligations of AT&T Comcast. Fitch said it revised its findings after learning that Comcast already had secured $10 billion funding commitment from 5 financial institutions out of total $12.5 billion that company had said was needed to close deal. Ratings service said its proposed ratings also reflected $300 million in cost savings expected in 2003 due to enhanced size of company, number of subscribers and what would be its leading position in 8 of nation’s top 10 designated market areas. Fitch also assumed in its rating that AT&T would be able to sell its Time Warner Entertainment assets. High-ranking Comcast official confirmed Tues. that AT&T Broadband and Comcast had no intention of holding onto TWE interests, saying they believed that interest to be “a nonperforming asset.” Official said sale of TWE holdings would be used to pare down debt and that companies didn’t intend to challenge FCC’s attribution rules, even if Commission eventually determined those rules to be out of date. “We don’t want it. We don’t need it. We want out,” official said. “Any change in the attribution rule is a moot point.” Comcast Pres. Stephen Burke told shareholders at Bear, Stearns media week conference in Fla. Mon. that merger would yield significant cost savings for combined company. He outlined what he called “a road map” to integrate companies, starting with line-by-line analysis of budgets in each system cluster. By going in and examining how comparably sized systems achieved higher margins, “you would be surprised how quickly local managers address anomalies,” Burke said. Burke and John Alchin, exec. vp-treas., predicted Comcast could integrate AT&T Broadband’s systems and bring their margins in line within 3 years. Burke also addressed problems with Comcast’s transition to its own high-speed data network from Excite@Home, which has folded after going bankrupt. He admitted it had “been a difficult transition” but said problems were behind Comcast now. In telephone interview Tues., David Watson, Comcast’s exec. vp-mktg. & customer service, denied network had suffered major e-mail outages. While he conceded there had been some slowdowns in receiving e-mail, in some cases by as much as 1-1/2 hours depending on time of day, Watson said those issues had been resolved. Problem, he said, was with Sun Microsystems server. Only problem that remained was that Comcast’s 950,000 customers couldn’t retrieve their e-mail remotely over Web, he said. They still can get their e-mail from their own computers, Watson said, but in any case, company expects problem will be resolved “in the next couple of days.” He stressed that Comcast’s new network was “scalable” and shouldn’t have problems supporting growing Internet customer base.