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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 17 2008, 12:32 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Talk about bad timing. Apple just announced it will offer downloaded movie rentals (including high-def) over the Internet. Netflix is working on a set-top box to do the same thing, and Microsoft has been ramping up its downloadable movie offerings over Xbox Live.
Now, one cable company is starting to push back at excessive bandwidth usage caused mainly by video downloading. After an internal memo was leaked, Time Warner Cable confirmed it's planning a trial in Beaumont, Tex., in which it will charge Internet subscribers based on usage. (Time Warner's shares closed down 22 cents to $22.35 Friday.)
It's a tricky situation for Time Warner and other cable companies. Customers generally pay a flat rate for Internet (about $50 a month in my case), but a small minority are basically torrenting HD movies like crazy and sucking up a bunch of bandwidth. According to the leaked memo, 5% of subscribers were using up half of the total bandwidth.
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Posted
Apr 03 2008, 11:45 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Filed under: Apple, Comcast, Ford, DirecTV, Verizon, Sirius XM, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Toyota, GM, Utilities, Dish Network
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
When the Justice Department cleared the merger of Sirius with XM Satellite there was anticipation that once the deal got done the shares of both companies would go up. A year ago, the combination was viewed as a dream deal.
If anything, the shares have dropped. Sirius is below $3 and XM is below $13. The market began to realize that the year wasted on getting government approval was a year the companies need to stay competitive. XM has over $1 billion in debt. Refinancing it in the current market would be nearly impossible. Selling shares would lead to extremely large dilution. As we recently noted, Goldman Sachs even put Sirius on its "Conviction Sell List" with a price target of $2.25.
Growth at Sirius has slowed considerably. In the fourth quarter revenue rose only 29% to $250 million. But, for the full year, revenue was up 45%. Subscriber deactivations in the fourth quarter were almost 540,000 compared to 330,000 in the same quarter of 2006. The firm's net loss was $166 million. Long-term debt was almost $1.3 billion.
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Posted
Nov 05 2008, 08:03 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The Internet and limits go together like, well, kittens and the guillotine.
Limits on the amount of data subscribers can use each month may soon be a standard feature of Internet usage. In an effort to combat "bandwidth hogs" who use a lot of network capacity, Internet service providers (ISPs) around the country are exploring new restrictions.
AT&T plans to test them in Reno, Nevada; if successful, may extend the practice to other cities. In some cases, about 5% of an ISP's subscribers use about 50% of the network's capacity. Adding bandwidth would be expensive, and most users don't require it
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Posted
Dec 19 2008, 08:57 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The music industry finally gets it: suing people for illegally sharing music is a bad idea. In its effort to stop piracy, the industry became a nasty bully flanked by an army of attorneys. It filed lawsuits against suspected song-sharers and trumpeted the news to the media. It tried to send a clear message: If you download music, you're going to get busted. But the message came across a little differently. People grew to hate the industry's strong-arm tactics. It sued a 13-year-old girl. And a dead person. And grandfathers who had no idea what downloading even was. In all, 35,000 people have been sued in the last five years. In business terms, the results were even worse.
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Posted
Jan 13 2009, 11:34 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
In September 2007, I wrote: “[For financial services firms], the income statement is the past; the balance sheet is the future.” Had I thought more about it, I would've said that was now true for every company.
Since I wrote that note, we've seen companies of all kinds writing off assets left and right. In many cases, these corporations try to position asset write-offs as “non-cash." And while technically correct, I would again remind readers that the reason the charges are “non-cash” is that the money (or stock) went out the door long ago. And to suggest that these write-downs aren't important is like suggesting that bank-loan losses (also non-cash charges) don’t matter.
Asset write-downs do matter - whether they're banks' loan assets, manufacturers' inventory, media companies' goodwill, or government agencies' deferred tax assets. At their core, outside of cash, balance-sheet assets are a forward-looking promise of cash “value” to be received at some time in the future.
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Posted
Mar 13 2009, 03:03 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post is from partner site The Big Money.
Your pockets no doubt feel a bit lighter these days, but just how much wealth has been lost in the tumult of the economic downturn? The Federal Reserve has the answer, releasing a calculation of the incredible shrinking income of the American family on Thursday. Citing the Fed figures, the Wall Street Journal says last year the wealth of American families fell nearly 18%, "the biggest loss since the Federal Reserve began keeping track after World War II." American families, the engine of the global economy, saw their net worth slip by a remarkable $11 trillion, or, the WSJ points out, "a decline in a single year that equals the combined annual output of Germany, Japan and the U.K."
Even those at the top will be (if they haven't already) feeling the pinch. According to a front page WSJ article, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is talking with Rep. Barney Frank and other lawmakers to devise "a plan to tie Wall Street pay to the long-term performance of the firms." There is not yet any new legislation targeting fat-cat compensation, but Frank told the newspaper to expect something soon.
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Posted
Jul 02 2009, 12:41 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
View the complete slideshow here!
The month will likely pass with very little mention. Folks will remain uninformed of its importance. The chance for honorary celebrations and time off from work will have elapsed.
 So just for your and your family's edification: July is National Bikini Month.
Conveniently timed to coincide with warm weather, family picnics and your child's summer vacation, National Bikini Month commands that the country expresses reverence to the wondrous innovation of dividing feminine swimwear into 2 pieces. An evocative example of liberation, women are no longer a slave to 1890s beach conventions. They are free to remove the swim cap and striped wading jumpsuit and enjoy a tan that doesn't stop at the wrists.
Yes, the bikini is truly a giant leap for mankind.
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Posted
Jul 06 2009, 01:21 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
It's not likely that Michael Jackson's estate will be settled any time soon. Given conflicts among his family, his lawyers, and children of unclear parentage, Jackson's property should finally be divvied up around the time "Off the Wall" enters the public domain.
But as those closest to Jackson attempt to sift through red tape almost as lasting as his fame, the pop star's death has sent ripples through Hollywood's ailing economy and has given it a much needed boost -- no matter how morbid or undignified.
Rather than a time of mourning and reverence, event planners are pushing for happiness and celebration: They're organizing events at which consumers might not mind dishing out $9 for a bottle of water emblazoned with a glittery glove, and where $50 to have your picture taken next to a cardboard cutout of MJ will seem like a good deal. You know -- the sort of magical moments when a huge crowd remembers a person's life by wanting to buy a part of it.
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Posted
Aug 21 2009, 10:14 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article was written by Minyanville's Mike Schuster For the last decade or so, the print industry has been struggling to remain relevant in the face of interactive and online media. Blogs and instant updates have eliminated the need to pick up an outdated version of headlines in bulky newsprint, forcing countless customers to second-guess paying for a paper or magazine. As it continues to lag behind the digital competition, the print industry needs to pull out all the stops -- which is what one publication intends to do. Eager to give its print division a much-needed boost, Time Warner (TWX) is hoping to lure more people to the magazine rack with a vibrant ad campaign for CBS (CBS) programming and Pepsi Max (PEP) in select issues of Entertainment Weekly next month. Bing: Digital Advertising
Much like an audio greeting card, the two-page insert features a two-inch screen that plays short video clips in relatively sharp resolution when the page is opened. Created by the Los Angeles-based Americhip, the video player is controlled by a column of buttons below the screen that select which clip to play -- be it a clip from Big Bang Theory or a commercial for Pepsi Max. The speaker isn't volume controlled but plays fairly loudly -- probably to lure the attention of the commuter sitting beside you on the subway. The video screen is able to hold up to 40 minutes of video and has a rechargeable battery -- though readers will unlikely want to fire up a talking ad after it's run out of juice.
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