The prosecution is still presenting its case in the Enron Broadband trial. Their last witness for the week was a techie who testified that EBS was going to have to rely on other companies' networks to deliver what it was promising.
John Bloomer, a computer expert hired in 1999, said the idea was approved about two weeks before a Jan. 20, 2000, stock analyst conference where prosecutors maintain Enron Broadband Services executives lied about the capabilities of their network.
"We were looking at a year-plus before we would be able to carry media transport on our network," Bloomer explained Friday under questioning from U.S. Attorney Ben Campbell.
Enron's network, at the time, could not direct "traffic" or track customers because it did not have the necessary software, Bloomer said in his second day of testimony.
The idea was to use a vendor's network to capitalize on a lucrative market for transmitting video for news organizations between Chicago, Denver, New York and Washington, D.C.
Deep-pocketed network television organizations frequently feed videotape along these routes and pay premium prices to do so. Enron, he said, would sell the service, while a vendor would be the sole network operator.
The Enron Task Force maintains such a plan was never mentioned at the January 2000 conference and executives told stock analysts they had their own network with a proprietary network control software.
The defense argues that the EBS vision was a work in progress and that no one misrepresented it. They say the network was being deployed in phases.
I'll come back to that last point in a minute. Bloomer's earlier testimony was that EBS was in disarray when he arrived. Read on...
"We were looking at a year-plus before we would be able to carry media transport on our network," Bloomer explained Friday under questioning from U.S. Attorney Ben Campbell.
Enron's network, at the time, could not direct "traffic" or track customers because it did not have the necessary software, Bloomer said in his second day of testimony.
The idea was to use a vendor's network to capitalize on a lucrative market for transmitting video for news organizations between Chicago, Denver, New York and Washington, D.C.
Deep-pocketed network television organizations frequently feed videotape along these routes and pay premium prices to do so. Enron, he said, would sell the service, while a vendor would be the sole network operator.
The Enron Task Force maintains such a plan was never mentioned at the January 2000 conference and executives told stock analysts they had their own network with a proprietary network control software.
The defense argues that the EBS vision was a work in progress and that no one misrepresented it. They say the network was being deployed in phases.
I'll come back to that last point in a minute. Bloomer's earlier testimony was that EBS was in disarray when he arrived. Read on...
