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AT&T, Apple Can't Win Fight Against VoIP

Hmm - the taxpayers DID subsidize the internet infrastructure, if you recall ..

www.tispa.org/node/14

$200 Billion Broadband Scandal, by Bruce Kushnick
...
Broadband Scandals is a well-documented expose, 406 pages and 528 footnotes. Using the phone companies' own words (and well as other sources), the book outlines a massive nationwide scandal that affects every aspect of state of the Internet. Not only the web but broadband, municipalities laying fiber or building wifi networks, not to mention related issues such as such as VOIP, cable services, the cost of local phone service, net neutrality, the new digital divide, and even America's economic growth.

The fiber optic infrastructure you paid for was never delivered.

Starting in the early 1990's, with a push from the Clinton-Gore Administration's "Information Superhighway", every Bell company - SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest - made commitments to rewire America, state by state. Fiber optic wires would replace the 100-year old copper wiring. The push caused techno-frenzy of major proportions. By 2006, 86 million households should have had a service capable of 45 Mbps in both directions, (to and from the customer) could handle over 500 channels of high quality video and be deployed in rural, urban and suburban areas equally. And these networks were open to ALL competition.

In order to pay for these upgrades, in state after state, the public service commissions and state legislatures acquiesced to the Bells' promises by removing the constraints on the Bells' profits as well as gave other financial perks. They were able to print money - billions of dollars per state - all collected in the form of higher phone rates and tax perks. (Note: each state is different.)

* ADSL is not what was promised and paid for. It goes over the old copper wiring, can't achieve the speed, has problems in rural areas and is mostly one-way.

* 0% of the Bell companies' customers have 45 Mbps residential services.

Harms and Outcomes
This investigative book isn't just a history, but a warning - the Bell companies can not be trusted with our digital future. Worse, what they have done has resulted in serious repercussions to local, state and national economy.

* The public subsidies for infrastructure were pocketed. The phone companies collected over $200 billion in higher phone rates and tax perks, about $2000 per household.

* The World is Laughing at US. Korea and Japan have 100 Mbps services as standard, and America could have been Number One had the phone companies actually delivered. Instead, we are 16th in broadband and falling in technology dominance.

* Harm to the economy. Five trillion dollars was lost because new technologies and services that America would have developed, happened in Korea. Municipalities around America are waking up to the fact that the phone companies failed to deliver and are now doing Wifi and fiber-based work-arounds.

Broadband Scandals delivers serious revelations. In fact, the book has been designed as the data source for Teletruth's complaint to the FTC against SBC and Verizon.

* The promised networks couldn't be built in 1993 and state laws were changed based on "deceptive speech". The technology today still has problems delivering 500 channels.

* The phone companies pulled a bait and switch. In order to offer DSL over copper, it was not necessary to have state regulation changed. Their plan was to get rid of regulations and enter long distance.

* The Bell mergers resulted in the death of the state plans for fiber optic broadband. Over 26 states had fiber optic projects closed when the mergers of SBC and Verizon were completed. That affected almost 80% of all phone customers in the US.



On Aug 02 10:35 AM daniel3582 wrote:

> Am I missing something here? Didn't AT&T spend years and years
> and tens of billions of dollars to build a wireless network from
> the ground up? What right does Google or the US government have to
> come in and tell them what to do with it?
>
> I'm really searching for a good answer here... feedback appreciated.

Bank of America Raises a Whole Lotta Money

Pj568,

thanks, that must indeed be the explanation. So the way I figure, BAC's "real" price according to the market gods was/ is somewhere above 11, having been clobbered too much, so having "successfully" been able to place its offering at $10 was viewed as a positive indicator. Hence the jump up. The reason the placement was at $10, at a discount over the market price, is that there must be some sort of restriction (maybe self implied if it was bought by the government or gov controlled entities) as to how long it had to hold the stock before being able to dump it back.
In other words the chance of BAC tanking, is what accounts for the discount.
Well, the market yesterday went up then down back to where it started for BAC. And XLF tanked - showing more pessimism.

Personal interest: I was long SKF but didnt have the guts to increase my position that much. Still, not complaining.

Bank of America Raises a Whole Lotta Money

Well yesterday after the news BAC jumped, from its close at 11, went up to 12.2 at 10:30, and now at 11.60 at 12:30 Wed May 20.
The offering is for $10 - anyone can explain why it should be trading so much higher than that ? At the very least markets are unfair - ha ha, what is new - else you could make guaranteed money.
Of course also price manipulation, a real possibility .. where are the regulators ? Oh I forgot, they are in it too ;-)

Dell's Adamo Laptop: Too Sexy for the Times?

Wrong tactical move in my opinion, and unfortunate branding: Adamo sounds much like the Alamo. Even a white knight rescue would only partly salvage whatever Dell value has left.

Apple users will hardly be fooled, and fashion conscious Microsoft users aren't going to turn around Dell; though Dell might take some market share from Sony, a heavy in the style area.
Probably better alternative would be for Michael Dell to give away some of the profits he made (ahem) on his stock to fund some meaningful R&D. Unlikely and maybe too late. Or just find a good way to close down the company as best as can be done, maybe sell to Cisco.
The trends aren't too good, and nothing new has happened to change my views of two years ago. Technology is brutal, one has to constantly innovate to just remain in the game. For some perspective, mentioned on 12/2/2007:
seekingalpha.com/artic...

And the Dell to HP (or tech Q's for that matter) price gap is still widening. From 12/03/2007 to today Dell has lost 63% of its value vs HP's or the tech sector's 42%.

The Fed: Now the World's Largest Private Bank

The conundrum is, the Fed is supposed to be the entity whose mandate is to regulate the banks and ensure the safety and efficiency of the payment system. It is also run in hybrid form by the government and the main private banks. And it is a private bank itself too.
The easy way to bail itself out is to print money. How intelligently is it doing it? Time to re-read some history books. The big difference with the past are the computing and communications technologies available.

Looking to Buy More Dell

I do not quite agree with this rosy forecast. This is a far more risky "investment" than is generally understood. For those who were around then, remember Data General, DEC, Wang, or even more similarly, AOL. The correct strategy at this point is to cut your losses as well as possible. Here's what I wrote on Fool.com yesterday and last year.

" .. With apologies for posting negative news on a board that by definition is slanted towards bullish Dell, I have not seen anything change since last year. Disappointment of sort: somehow Dell found a way out of its accounting issues, esp. re: no reporting correctly the hidden subsidies it received from Intel.

If anything, Lenovo has grown even stronger, bold enough to drop the IBM moniker ahead of schedule. Lenovo laptops now rank tops in my personal research, service included; HP continues to execute smartly. And Acer is also growing. Services, servers? This is a crowded field, and I don't see Dell with any defining advantage - this is a people intensive field.

The reason Dell could not report advantages from reduced component prices is probably that they are already squeezing suppliers to the bone.

All that is left really is an efficient but increasingly less relevant production system and a brand name which only the uninformed turn to. Some of my technical associates no longer use Dell despite slightly lower prices because of poor support and unfixable issues, esp. for *nix uses. Businesses already using Dell have a harder time changing course, that is one of the only pluses.

The hardest part for humanoids is recognizing our own errors *and* acting accordingly. Nothing like Mr Market to teach us that lesson - and to make matters worse, humans are known to be far more stubborn in learning to change than monkeys or rats.

It took the market 4 years+ to recognize AOL's hubris. In Dell's case it may take less, especially in tougher economic times.
...

My post last year for more details is below boards.fool.com/Messag...

...my take is that Dell isnt ( hasnt been) for a long time a good company. I won't rehash the arguments here, only maybe for the record:

Dell isnt inventing much; its advantages are gone - (1) HP, eMachines/Gateway, Lenovo, etc all have streamlined their no-inventory procuction lines; (2) its special relationship with Intel is gone, for many reasons, mostly antitrust action from AMD - bottom line, Dell no longer gets preferential access to cpus and super discounted prices

Dell has been trying desperately to reinvent itself - it does have a short window of opportunity with the intel Core duo (short because AMD is coming next, cf the AMD board) - and did pretty good deal with AMD re supply advantage. Dell does have brand recognition, though that is declining (cf abysmal tech support). Still, how much does one want to gamble/invest on Dell as a reseller, kind of Walmart of computer things?

Finally -from personal experience- I have seen since last year Dell pulling tricks to make money AOL style ( order equipment, get instant 90 day no interest line of credit, get hit with 20% finance charge on the 92nd day because the accounts payable clerk never paid the $0.00 invoice with zero balance due but in very fine print the amount due later, AND the worst, spending hours getting the run around trying to talk to anyone at Dell.. best: from some Indian fellow: can I talk to your manager? .. I have no manager (true) .. end of story, my client never did pay these crazy charges, and Dell didnt respond to our lawyer .. pfft . .when a company has to resort to such methods to generate revenues, I say . .sell!

I much prefer HP (at least great engineering and R&D) and real business values instead. Not that they make all themselves either, smart, they do use Canon laser engines ..

Note added today (12/2/07) since last year HP has been about 30% higher than Dell and going stronger all the time.