An Internet Firm by Any Other Name . . .

Missed opportunity.

It seems that investors are willing to pour big bucks into the stock of just about any publicly traded company that is identifiably connected with electronic commerce. The love affair has made the founders of several such companies, if nobody else, quite wealthy in recent months.

So along comes eSat Inc., a Fountain Valley firm that provides satellite-based Internet connections and services.

If electronic retailer eBay Inc. can see its stock jump to $262 a share (Monday’s close) from $25.25 in just four months, the sky might be the limit, too, for a stock called eSat.

The company, which had been called Technology Guardian Inc., announced last week that it had changed its name to eSat Inc. and said its stock would trade under the symbol ESAT.

There was no problem with the name change, but it turns out--unfortunately for the former Technology Guardian, that the stock symbol was already taken.

So in a press release Monday, the company said it wouldn’t be trading as ESAT after all. Instead, the National Assn. of Securities Dealers has assigned ASAT to the company.

Thus go awry the best-laid plans, to paraphrase the poet.

Oh, eSat’s stock--trading under the ASAT symbol--opened at $22.63 Monday and closed at $20.