Telecom and Semiconductor Weekly Notes – AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, AMD & Akamai

Telecom

Source: Official Website of STA Telecom Services

Week Update: Technology Sector News

Below we included a summary of a few announcements or news items that caught our attention last week and might be of interest to investors interested in technology stocks. This update includes AT&T (NYSE:T), Verizon (NYSE:VZ), AMD (NYSE:AMD), Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM).

AT&T

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There were few key announcements by AT&T this week. First, it looks like that AT&T is quite confident that its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile will go through and should be closed by Mar. 2012, despite some opposition from companies like Sprint. [1] Second, AT&T has announced its own content delivery network that companies like Akamai specialize in. [2] And lastly, the company has also announced the date of its Q2 2011 earnings release as July 21, 2011. We will be updating our pricing model at that point.  [3]

Verizon

Verizon made a couple of announcements recently. First, the company has confirmed its switch to usage-based mobile data pricing and will be doing so in July 2011. [4] This was anticipated as the carriers will need such structure to manage network traffic. Second announcement was focused around marketing of RIM’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) tablet to enterprise accounts and shows Verizon’s commitment to RIM despite reducing popularity of its Blackberry smartphones. [5]

Comcast

Comcast has announced that it will be releasing its Q2 2011 results on Aug 3 2011. [6] This will be the second quarter when the company’s results will reflect NBC Universal’s business as well.

AMD

AMD has made some progress in high performance computing segment [7] More than half of supercomputers based on AMD chips have 8-core and 12-core Opteron 6100 processors. [7] Could this mean that AMD will be able to do better in server market with its Opteron processors?

Akamai

Akamai is now looking at new ways to make money and survive in content delivery network business which is increasingly getting competitive. The word is that the company is looking to license its CDN (content delivery network) technology and is in talks with certain telcos and carriers. [8]

Notes:
  1. AT&T confident T-Mobile deal will close by March 2012, FierceWireless, Jun 22 2011 []
  2. AT&T’s New Cloud-Based Service Helps Businesses Speed Delivery of Web Content, PR Newswire, Jun 22 2011 []
  3. AT&T to Release Second-Quarter 2011 Earnings July 21, AT&T Press Release, Jun 21 2011 []
  4. Verizon will switch to usage-based smartphone data pricing in July, FierceWireless, Jun 21 2011 []
  5. Verizon agrees to target RIM PlayBook to enterprise accounts, FierceWireless, Jun 20 2011 []
  6. Comcast to Host Second Quarter 2011 Earnings Conference Call, Comcast Press Release, Jun 22 2011 []
  7. AMD Sees 15 Percent Growth in Six Months on Newest List of TOP500 Supercomputers, AMD Press Release, Jun 20 2011 [] []
  8. Akamai Developing A Licensed CDN Offering For Telcos and Carriers, blog.streamingmedia.com, Jun 20 2011 []