This is becoming all too familiar. As newspapers pointed out during Enron's demise, a true reorganization under Chapter 11 is now almost unheard of. Instead, creditors demand immediate payment by any means necessary, turning every Chapter 11 into a liquidation as fast and brutal as under Chapter 7. That may be OK for energy traders getting too big for their britches, but is it appropriate for companies involved in broadband access?

Let me make clear that I look with equal disfavor on @Home and AT&T. The majority investment resulting from AT&T's takeover of TCI was never about old-line phone heads not "getting" the superior intellect in @Home. It was about @Home execs promising more for their local caching servers and head-end switching equipment than it was worth. Creditors were mad that AT&T offered only $307 million to buy up the @Home technology, which they claimed could fetch $1 billion. Fat chance. The AT&T offer was a viable one, since @Home didn't bring much to the party.

AT&T was pushed to withdraw its offer, though, by other creditors operating behind the scenes even before @Home announced in late November that it would halt service to AT&T. Once that service was halted, so was the offer. Excite@Home now will cease business at the end of February.

It's true that cable companies have figured out how to work with people like Cedar Point and River Delta to build their own Internet Protocol switching networks. Cable customers might best be served by @Home's demise-assuming they can get past the next three months of chaos. But AT&T said it would have preferred not having to do a second switching buildout. The folks that forced the issue were the creditors.

Last summer, I suggested that those who plowed money into fiber plant should not consider it a complete waste, provided they took the long view. Buildouts done in 1997-2000 will offer payback in 2003-05. But is there any such thing as "patient capital" among institutional investors? The @Home saga suggests otherwise.

In a recession, it's downright unpatriotic to demand instant payback. The spoilers of residential broadband access were investors clamoring for an instant return.