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Posted
Mar 27 2008, 12:58 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
AT&T pledged in 2006 to bring back 5,000 customer service jobs to the U.S. from India, eliminating its low-wage foreign call centers. But CEO Randall Stephenson said this week he can't find enough skilled workers to fill the jobs.
"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs," Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio. So far, only 1,400 jobs have been successfully brought back here.
Stephenson gave an especially candid speech, deploring the fact that the high school dropout rate is as high as 50% in some cities.
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Posted
May 21 2008, 10:33 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Sprint Nextel has a problem keeping customers happy, according to the latest numbers from the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Sprint's numbers are so bad, in fact, that the index's founder wonders how the company can even stay afloat. "Business is unsustainable in a competitive marketplace when customer satisfaction scores are as low as Sprint Nextel's," said the founder, Claes Fornell. Sprint's satisfaction level dropped 8% from last year to 56 on the 100-point index. Verizon scored the best in the industry, at 72. Commenters on this blog regularly slam AT&T for its service, but the company's cell phone division gained 4% to score a 71. You can see the full customer satisfaction index here.
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Posted
Sep 22 2009, 10:26 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 My sister wanted to get Apple's iPhone, but the service was so bad in Tucson, Ariz., that she decided against it. And Cnet's Elinor Mills writes that iPhone calls from her San
Francisco apartment are dropping or are garbled.
While the iPhone itself draws raves from adoring fans, AT&T's (T) wireless service leaves much to be desired for some. Mills says her iPhone service is so bad it's often easier to have a Web video conference than make a simple voice call. She called AT&T to ask why, and was told that maybe the thickness of her walls or the network demand were to blame. AT&T insisted the issue was not newsworthy. And presto: That's the fastest way to make sure a reporter treats something as newsworthy. Bing: How people deal with iPhone dropped calls
Mills' story seems to be touching a nerve,
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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
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
Jun 23 2008, 05:41 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Filed under: Citigroup, Sprint, Wal-Mart, Intel, AMD, AT&T, Starbucks, Target, Sears, IBM, Costco, Sun Microsystems
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
With the trading year almost half over and results from the first quarter out, 24/7 Wall Street has created the latest installment of its Ten Worst Managed Companies In America list. This is a companion piece to the "CEO of the Year" list and "Large Companies that May Disappear" series.
This analysis is based on: 1) one-year and five-year stock performance relative to the major indexes and other companies in the industry, 2) the company's position in its industry both now and over the last five years, 3) whether management made identifiable and critical decisions which hurt the company, 4) a change in the company's relative market strength compared to its competition, and 5) whether the company could have identified mistakes and changed course quickly enough to avoid a catastrophe.
Some readers will think it is not fair to include companies which have had a recent
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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
Mar 11 2008, 01:26 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
What a horrible day for Sprint shares. The stock hit a 20-year-low today. That's right, shares dipped to $5.55, the lowest level since July 1988. The stock price rebounded and closed at $6.17, down 8% from yesterday.
I can't find much reason for the tankage today, other than an analyst note from the Stanford Group lowering 2008 estimates to 23 cents per share from 43 cents. The analyst reviewed Sprint's last 10-K and thinks that Sprint's costs are going to go up. Last week, a Goldman Sachs analyst warned investors to "stay away from the stock." Looks like people are taking his advice. There's some piling on here in the analyst crowd, and I can't say it's unwarranted. But Wall Street's wildly varying expectations suggest a general cluelessness about where Sprint is headed. Analysts on average peg Sprint's 2008 profit at 21 cents a share. But the range of predictions goes from a 20 cent per-share loss to a profit of 87 cents.
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Posted
Jun 12 2008, 09:41 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Oh, sure, Apple's new 3G iPhone sounds great at $199, but AT&T is going to pile on a two-year contract, a voice plan that starts at $39 a month and a data plan that adds $30 on top of that. And if you want text messaging, it'll cost you another $5 a month. It all adds up to $1,975 over two years, and Gizmodo takes a look at how that compares with other phones.
Turns out the price isn't that bad. The original iPhone costs $160 less, at $1,815 over two years. But three other 3G phones cost more. AT&T's HTC Tilt costs $2,075, Sprint's HTC Mogul costs $1,955 and the XV6800 by Verizon comes in at $2,175.
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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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