April 12, 2013
Justice Department Urges FCC to Expand Access to Low-Frequency Spectrum in 2014 Auction
 In a filing that was released to the public on Friday, the Justice Department told the Federal Communications Commission that small wireless carriers deserve a fair portion of the low-frequency spectrum in the auction that is to take place next year. The case was laid out succinctly in the document: “The department concludes that rules that ensure the smaller nationwide networks, which currently lack substantial low-frequency spectrum, have an opportunity to acquire such spectrum could improve the competitive dynamic among nationwide carries and benefit consumers”. Telecom giants Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) have long had more or less of a stranglehold on the provision of telephone and broadband internet services, and are concerned about increased access to the spectrum for smaller telecom companies such as Deutsche Telekom’s (DTEGY) T-Mobile, as well as Sprint Nextel (S). Federal regulators are looking at (more)…
BlackBerry Fires Back at Detwiler Fenton on Z10 Return Rates
 BlackBerry (BBRY), the company formerly known as Research in Motion, has a lot riding on its newest operating system and line of smartphones. The fate of the company perhaps resides in the success of the new products after massive losses in recent years from plunging sales amid stiff competition from companies like Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG) and Samsung (SSNLF). Needless to say, BlackBerry did not need the news put out by Detwiler Fenton & Co. on Thursday saying that U.S. retailers were experience high return rates of new Z10 phones because of an unintuitive interface, lack of apps and other reasons. Detwiler went on to say that in some cases, returns were exceeding sales, “a phenomenon we have never seen before,” according to reports. Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry denied the reports on Thursday, but took a bigger shot at Detwiler on (more)…
April 10, 2013
Google Fiber to Come to Austin by 2014 as AT&T Gives the City a Competing Offer
 Homes in Kansas City have, since November, been receiving the Google (GOOG) Fiber internet service that the tech company claims is “100 times faster” than the typical broadband offering of any of the major telecoms who traditionally provide internet connection. If the plan works out, it will look much the same as the Kansas City deal that allows residents to choose from standalone Gigabit Internet service, or a bundle service that includes almost 200 TV channels. As in Kansas City, Google will also offer residents of Austin a slower 5 megabit-per second service for a period of seven years, in exchange for a one-time construction fee. AT&T, Inc. (T) was quick to criticize the deal and make a similar offer to the city of Austin. In a statement, the telecom giant said that it anticipates its plans to expand fiber (more)…
April 8, 2013
Fox and Other Broadcast Giants Threaten to Pull Programming from Network TV in Bid to Halt Aereo Online Television
 At a National Association of Broadcasters conference on Monday, News Corp (NWSA) COO Chase Carey threatened that his company would considering removing its Fox channel from broadcast television in the wake of the recent court ruling giving the internet company Aereo the right to broadcast programming from Fox and other channels on its Web TV service without paying for the content. On April 1, Aereo won a legal battle against broadcasters and station owners when a Federal appeals court rejected a request to shut down the company web-TV service. Disney (DIS), CBS (CBS), and News Corp. were among the big names that had filed the suit against the internet startup, and are said to be exploring similar moves to cable channels if Aereo is not stopped. Aereo operates by intercepting broadcast signals, storing them digitally, and then re-transmitting them over the web, and (more)…
Microsoft to Sell IPTV Business to Ericsson
 Telecom equipment maker Ericsson (ERIC) said on Monday that it has come to terms with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to buy its television solution Mediaroom business, making Ericsson the leading provider of Internet Protocol Television, or IPTV, with a greater than 25 percent market share. Microsoft Mediaroom is the TV technology behind many of the world’s leading television service providers like AT&T (T) U-verse®, Entertain of Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, TELUS Optik T and Swisscom. No purchase price was disclosed. Cross Research estimated in March, when it was reported that the two companies were in discussions about a sale of Mediaroom, that the business could be worth in excess of $1 billion. Ericsson said in its announcement that the global IPTV market will generate about $32 billion in 2013 with sales expected to rise to $45 billion in 2015. With competition from (more)…
April 2, 2013
Stocks Under $10: Buy Rated Utilities Companies
 At www.ValuEngine.com we show that the Utilities sector is 12.9% undervalued. All 10 stocks in today’s table have complete ValuEngine data and have enough price data to have most value levels, risky levels and pivots. Cincinnati Bell Inc. (CBB) – has been below $6.25 for at least five years. Edenor SA (EDN) – was a $25 stock in October 2007 and has been below $10 since the week of August 13, 2011. Frontier Communications Corp. (FTR) – has been below $10 since the week of October 18, 2008. Maxcom Telecomunicaciones S.A.B. de C.V. (MXT) – has been below $10 since the week of August 9, 2008. Oi SA (OIBR) – has been below $10 since the week of June 18, 2011. Pampa Energia SA (PAM)– was a $19 stock in January 2011 and has been below $10 since the week of March 24, 2012. Sprint (more)…
March 22, 2013
The Evolution and Financial Implications of the March Madness Fan Experience
 Back in April of 2010, the viewing experience of March Madness was forever changed when the NCAA and CBS (CBS) in tandem with Turner Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Time Warner Cable (TCW), signed a 14-year deal worth $10.8 billion to broadcast the extremely popular men’s basketball tournament. The previous deal between the NCAA ($6 billion for 11 years) was in keeping with CBS’s traditional format of broadcasting three to four games per day on a regional basis. This was limiting in that viewers in one part of the country were out of luck if, say, their favorite team or alma mater was located in a different part of the country from where they lived. The new deal, on the other hand, provides complete national coverage of the tournament, doing so across four channels: CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTv, and is (more)…
February 21, 2013
Are These High Yield Dividend Plays at Risk?
 Telecommunications company CenturyLink Inc. (CTL) rattled investors recently by decreasing its dividend payout by 26 percent, resulting in an immediate drop of 22.6 percent in its share price. CenturyLink had an extremely generous dividend yield of 8.55 percent, and a huge payout ratio of 245.41 percent. With projected earnings-per-share growth for next year of about 12 percent, it is difficult to imagine that the company could have done anything to avoid cutting its dividend payout down to a more manageable size. Consequently, companies that fit a similar profile to that of CenturyLink also saw their stock price get dragged down on the news. Here are a few names that could potentially be at risk of cutting their dividend payouts in the near future due to high percentages that cannot be maintained on the company’s financials and fit the following criteria: (more)…
February 11, 2013
5 High-Yield Telecom Dividends With Strong Starts for 2013
 Five Telecommunications companies with market caps over $2 billion are currently providing dividend yields of 5 percent or better to start off 2013. A closer look at the following five companies shows that they all have significant amounts of cash they are studiously investing in growth and acquisitions. At the same time all of them have been very investor-friendly, with solid revenue streams and an overall strategy that involves keeping dividends on an upward trajectory. This makes them worthy of consideration for dividend portfolios. BCE Inc. (BCE), is a Canadian Telecom with a market cap of $34.05 billion, and a Year-to-Date performance that is currently up 3.73 percent. With shares trading at $43.96, their yield is $2.30, which translates to a 5.10 percent gain for investors. The company raised dividends by $.010 in August and another $0.06 yesterday after the (more)…
January 22, 2013
Research in Motion Rally Continues on Upgrades and Licensing Considerations
 Research in Motion (RIMM) continued its multi-month rally with Toronto-listed shares surging another 11 percent on Monday while Wall Street was shuttered in observance of Martin Luther King Day. One of the catalysts was RIM’s German-born chief executive Thorsten Heins conducting an interview with German newspaper Die Welt, explaining that the company is examining licensing its new BlackBerry 10 operating system to rivals. Heins explained that RIM must first show that there is global demand for the new operating system, but he believes that the new BlackBerry 10, scheduled for launch at the end of January, can play a “substantial” role in the industry. Translated by Google Translate (the article is in German), Heins said that the new operating system is a “true mobile computing platform” and that “We shall then see that the trend is towards strengthening the BlackBerry (more)…
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