drying his hands and pushed the button on his speakerphone. Levin was the first to speak. "I'm just calling to say hello," he dead- panned. "That's an expensive way to become partners," Armstrong said. Case jumped in and said that AOL was really a big communica- tions company that would "move up the chain to content" with this merger, making it easier for the company to have a "strategic commu- nications partner." Armstrong agreed. "Mike, AOL has tried to work together with AT&T," Case said. "AOL Time Warner has to work with you. We're a lot more complementary than we were yesterday." Levin provided an example: "Our merger announcement supports the argu- ment that competition for the Bell companies will come through cable, Mike. This merger facilitates IP telephony." That answered one question: Levin was not really interested in offering telephony over cable until the technology was available to do it digitally. "We ought to focus on marketing partnerships," Levin added. "We don't want to change the ownership structure of our cable systems, but we do need to figure out how to disaggregate Roadrunner and AtHome." That answered another. The Time Warner Entertainment stake that AT&T acquired with MediaOne included most of Time War- ner's cable properties as well as the Roadrunner online service. Levin Stay Off the Treadmill of Expectations knew that the Department of Justice would probably require AT&T to divest its stake in Roadrunner. Armstrong parried a little. "Well, we want to be a full partner in your cable distribution systems," he said. "We thought we might exchange some of the content properties [in Time Warner Entertainment] to increase our share of the cable owner- ship." "I'm not lusting for IOO percent of Warner Brothers and HBO," Levin said. "Unless you have to unload content for some regulatory reason, I'd like to ignore it for now." That answered the biggest ques- tion. Levin was satisfied with the status quo on AT&T's partial owner- ship of Time Warner Entertainment. Cashing out or getting more cont