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Posted
Dec 11 2007, 04:12 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 I ditched my landline telephone in June and don't miss it one bit. A federal study out yesterday shows that 14% of households in the U.S. are like mine -- with cell phones but no landline phones. (Read the study here.)
Citigroup analyst Michael Rollins estimates that wireless-only households will rise to 27% by 2010, and cable VoIP penetration will reach 25% by then. So is there a future in telco stock? Rollins thinks the industry is safe, because consumer telephony provides only 22% of telco revenue.
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Posted
Dec 12 2007, 04:13 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
After years of paying Comcast at least $100 a month for cable and Internet, I can't help but cheer AT&T on these days. The company is going after cable in a big way by aggressively expanding its U-verse digital television service. AT&T said yesterday it wants to have signed up 1 million video customers by the end of next year. And by 2010, the company said, the service will be available to 30 million customers.
Getting there isn't cheap: AT&T is planning to spend about $5 billion this year and next to deploy U-verse, which could cut into 2008 earnings by as much as 14 cents a share. It wants to up its weekly installs from 10,000 to 40,000 by next year.
U-verse's TV signal comes over Internet Protocol through broadband, and you don't need a traditional voice line to use it. The service's advantages include fast channel changing, the ability to record four shows at the same time on a DVR, and a picture-in-picture tool that lets you watch one channel and browse another. You can only watch one HD channel at a time, but AT&T said it will change that in the future.
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Posted
Jan 02 2008, 01:50 PM
by
Matt Koppenheffer
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The "Dogs of the Dow" is a mechanical investing theory born in the early 90's. The strategy is to invest in the top 10 highest-yielding (dividend as a percentage of stock price) Dow stocks at the beginning of each year. The theory is that though stock prices can wildly fluctuate over market cycles, dividends tend to stay stable, so high yielding stocks typically represent undervalued stocks.
While I'm not a mechanical investor by any stretch, I am willing to troll for ideas at a lot of different fishing holes. So without further ado, the Dogs of the Dow for 2008 (with dividend yield) are
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Posted
Jan 09 2008, 12:57 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
A fairly obvious consequence of a troubled economy: People can't pay their bills. And AT&T shares are suffering as a result. The company said Tuesday it had to disconnect more broadband and landline phone customers for not paying their bills. AT&T stock got punished in the market, dropping 9.5% on the news. Shares were down slightly today to $38.96.
In an interesting sign of the times, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said the wireless side of the business was still OK. When the economy goes soft, people dump their landline phones first and hold on to their cell phones as long as possible, he said. In the old days, as News.com points out, people would never think about disconnecting their landline phone.
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Posted
Feb 05 2008, 12:46 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
AT&T just won federal approval to spend $2.5 billion on valuable wireless airwaves -- a major score. Separately, the company is jacking up high-speed Internet prices by $5 a month. Someone's got to pay for those airwaves. AT&T is already the biggest cell phone company in the country. And it's about to get a whole lot bigger with this purchase, sold by Aloha Spectrum. This chunk of spectrum covers 196 million people in 281 markets, including the top 10 markets in the country. The spectrum is in the 700-megahertz band and is particularly valuable because it passes through walls easily and carries signals farther than average. It's perfect for long-range broadband and wireless video. AT&T is planning to use it for broadcast video, probably on a mobile broadcast network with several channels.
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Posted
Feb 11 2008, 01:23 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
AT&T gets another win today. Starbucks is ditching T-Mobile and going with AT&T for its customer Wi-Fi service at 7,000 locations.
People who have a Starbucks prepaid gift card can get two hours of free Wi-Fi per day at Starbucks. Glenn Fleishman confirms that you can buy and activate a card, and then get free Wi-Fi from that day forward. Most of AT&T's broadband and U-verse customers will also have free access, but AT&T wireless customers (including iPhone users) won't get the same deal. Surprisingly, the per-hour Wi-Fi fees will drop under AT&T to $4 for two hours or $20 per month for unlimited access. (T-Mobile used to charge $6 an hour).
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Posted
Feb 12 2008, 06:53 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Firestone. American Motors. Texaco. Pan Am. Worldcom. These large American companies were once at the top of their industries. Pan Am was the leading global airline for decades. All are gone: Some were sold off, others went bankrupt. Who could have predicted it?
There are several iconic U.S. companies that may well not exist at the end of 2008. Some may not even make it halfway through the year. Not all will go out of business. Some may simply be auctioned off in pieces. Others may be bought. These companies will not exist in their current forms as they are known to their shareholders and consumers now.
When a company ceases to exist as an independent entity, it is not necessarily bad for shareholders. Some may be worth more in parts. Often a bust-up or merger is what brings owners the most money. Here are the big ones that probably won't make it. (A more detailed assessment is available at 24/7 Wall St.)
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Posted
Feb 20 2008, 08:38 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Verizon has been the ruler of the walk, but that has changed. Yesterday, the shares hit a 52-week low at $35.19.
The large run-up in Verizon's stock last year was based on two things. The first was that its new fiber-to-the-home TV and broadband service was picking up customers from cable companies like Comcast. That sent Comcast shares to multi-year lows. Comcast's latest earnings showed that the impact of Verizon's initiative was less than expected. More recently the phone company said that it could not get HD set-top boxes to many of its new fiber customers. Motorola had fallen behind in making them. All of a sudden, the $23 billion that Verizon put into the fiber project did not look quite so good.
Then the market was hit with news of a cellular price war between Verizon Wireless and AT&T. T-Mobile got in on the action just or fun. Cellular revenue is what has driven Verizon's revenue and operating income over the last several years as it has lost landline business to VoIP.
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Posted
Feb 20 2008, 12:17 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Price war! Two words consumers love to hear. In this case, the war is among wireless carriers unveiling unlimited calling plans for heavy phone users. Verizon started it all by announcing a $100 plan for unlimited voice. AT&T and T-Mobile USA joined in with similarly-priced plans, but T-Mobile added text messaging as well. That leaves everyone waiting to hear from Sprint, the last of the big four carriers. UBS telecom analyst John Hodulik thinks Sprint will undercut everyone with an unlimited plan priced at $60-$80 a month. Hodulik thinks Sprint will make the announcement in the next few weeks.
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Posted
Feb 21 2008, 12:30 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This could be a turnaround year for struggling Palm, and all because of three letters: GSM. The beleaguered smartphone maker already got a boost in the arm four months ago when its new Centro smartphone became an overnight success. But the $100 Centro was exclusively made for Sprint, and that meant it could only be used in the U.S. on Sprint's CDMA network. That exclusive contract has ended, allowing Palm to take the Centro to other carriers. AT&T jumped at the chance, and this week, both companies announced a new Centro that runs on AT&T's Edge network, which uses GSM technology. That's significant because GSM is the global standard for wireless phones -- 86% of the world's wireless subscribers use it, according to AT&T. The new Centro can place calls in nearly 200 countries.
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