Telus Corp (TU), Canada’s second largest telecom carrier, has officially announced the launch date and pricing of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone (3G and 3GS). The company will commence selling the highly popular device on Nov 5, 2009. Moreover, Telus will also unveil its new HSPA (high speed packet access) based 3G wireless networks on the same day to support the iPhone launch.  Telus will sell iPhone 3G (8GB) for $99.99 with a 3-year contract and for $599.99 without any contract. The company has priced iPhone 3GS (16 GB) at $199.99 with a 3-year contract and $699.99 without contract. The 32 GB version of iPhone 3GS will be sold for $299.99 (with contract) and $799.99 (without contract).  Canada’s largest wireless carrier Rogers Communication (RCI) has been the sole distributor of iPhone in the country since July 2008, leveraging its GSM and HSPA wireless networks. However, the ...

  Yesterday in a speech, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski has recommended a new rule to apply net neutrality to all telecom and cable service providers. Net neutrality will prohibit internet service providers (ISP), especially the phone and cable companies, from discriminating against users or applications. ISPs must grant consumers equal access to all legal web applications and services. The rule was so far applicable to the wired services providers, but the new proposal from the FCC wants to bring the flourishing wireless industry under scrutiny. The FCC’s new proposal is, in general, bad news for large telecom and cable operators like AT&T (T), Verizon Wireless (VZ), T-Mobile, a division of Deutsch Telekom (DT) and Comcast Corp. (CMCSA). As of now, these companies can restrict any devices, applications, services, or contents from running through their respective networks that competes with their own ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 4, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: AT&T Inc. (T), NTT DoCoMo (DCM), Vodafone (VOD), Telefonica (TEF) and SK Telecom (SKM).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:

AT&T Leads Global HSPA Market

AT&T Inc. (T) has reportedly emerged as the leading player in the global HSPA (high-speed packet access) market in terms of total subscriber connections. According to a recent report by the GSM Association, the second-largest US carrier has outpaced industry leaders such as

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UTStarcom Inc (UTSI), a provider of IP-based broadband equipment, has become a major contender for the global IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) solutions business. The strategic decision taken by the management to transform the company from a mobile handset developer to an IPTV and fixed broadband access system solutions provider has been favorably implemented.

UTStarcom’s RollingStream IPTV solutions are acting as the main catalyst and at the end of March 2009; the RollingStream system supported more than 1.32 million IPTV subscribers worldwide with a total deployed subscriber capacity of 2.5 million. The company maintains a commanding market position in the Asian regions, especially in China and India.   Nationwide deployment of 3G wireless networks by Chinese telecom carriers has resulted in strong order bookings. Recently, China Telecom (CHA) announced plans to implement a large-scale Mobile TV system in China using UTStarcom’s RollingStream platform.

The company has also expanded into IPTV advertising

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Altera Corp. (ALTR) is expected to report quarterly financial results on July 14. The San Jose, California-based company designs, manufactures and markets a broad range of high-performance, high-density programmable logic devices (PLDs) such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs).

The company earlier updated its guidance for the second quarter of fiscal 2009. As demand from OEMs providing equipment for Asian 2G and 3G wireless networks remains strong, management reiterated its prior guidance for quarterly sales that indicates a 2% – 7% sequential growth.

The main drivers for growth in Q2 are new products. Sales of 65-nanometer devices are up sharply, while sales of the company's 40-nanometer devices are on track to double from first-quarter levels, as projected by the management. Altera expects Stratix IV to continue its revenue ramp and management forecasts $3 million in revenue in Q2 and close to $10 million

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Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), the largest integrated telecom operator in Taiwan, recently gave a snapshot of its financial results for the second quarter of 2009. Quarterly revenue from the parent company fell 3% year-over-year to NT$45.2 billion and net income was NT$11.54 billion, down 7.8% from the year-ago quarter.

Chunghwa’s second-quarter revenue was also below our expectations of NT$49 billion. This was primarily due to lower phone calls and utilization of internet data services by consumers as a result of the general economic downturn together with lower call tariffs imposed by the Taiwanese Government.

However, the company’s net earning was above our estimates of NT$10.9 billion. This is despite the fact that Chunghwa has undertaken significant expenses to upgrade its wireless network to support high-speed voice and data communications.

Taiwanese telecom market is quickly approaching maturity and has become extremely competitive following telecom regulatory changes. Chunghwa competes in a

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Xilinx, Inc. (XLNX) recently lowered its guidance for the first quarter, ended June 30, 2009. The company now expects sales for the first quarter to be down approximately 5% sequentially. This implies revenues to come around $375 million compared to $395 million reported in the previous quarter.XLNX had earlier estimated sales in the range of (4%) to 4%. Management stated that the shortfall in sales is primarily due to supply constraints on certain Virtex-5 devices (programmable chips for high-speed networking applications), which are in great demand. However, management expects that most of the existing delinquency issues will be resolved by the September quarter.The company had earlier forecasted sales from Asia-Pacific and Japan to be up and sales from Europe and America to go down. This is the fifth consecutive quarter of revenue decline for XLNX. Gross margin is projected around 61% - ...

While industry statistics indicate that the wireless phone market is declining globally, emerging markets like China and India are helping handset makers to more than compensate the loss. Users in these countries can now have more data-intensive services on their mobile phones, such as video call and film download through the high-speed 3G networks. China will invest approximately $58 billion in 3G networks over the next three years.

The Chinese government completed the first phase of its plan to upgrade the nation's wireless infrastructure to 3G networks in January 2009. Licenses were issued to the country's largest telecom companies, China Mobile Ltd (CHL), China Unicom Ltd (CHU), and China Telecom Corp (CHA), to build and provide the nation's premier high-speed wireless networks.

The three Chinese players plan to spend over $20 billion this year alone rolling out the initial phases of their 3G deployments.

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Altera Corp. (ALTR, Buy) issued its mid-quarter update for Q2, ending in June, yesterday. Judging from the share-price performance so far today (down nearly 5%), investors appear to have taken the news with a grain of salt. Perhaps the absence of an upside in guidance is the reason for the shares negative performance so far today.Investors may recall that ALTR shares got a boost last week following a sell-side analyst raising his Q2 EPS estimates by a penny, compared to our and consensus estimates of $0.16, based mainly on expectation that the company will boost its second-quarter forecast during the mid-quarter update. Apparently the company has not done so, resulting in a reversal of gains from last week.But it remains to be seen whether the company can deliver improved results compared to our and consensus expectations, given the company's reiteration that "demand from OEMs ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - May 29, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), AIG (AIG) and UTStarcom, Inc. (UTSI).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579.

Here are highlights from Thursday's Analyst Blog:

Consolidated Banking, Maybe?

Clearly the cobbled-together oversight from various federal agencies was ineffective to contain the current financial crisis that all but swallowed the U.S. last year -- institutions such as but not limited to Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM) and AIG (

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