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Technology Stocks : COM21 (CMTO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pat mudge who wrote (653)	6/24/1999 6:09:00 PM
From: kendall harmon	Respond to of 2347

CMTO-looks good for a bounce tomorrow. Milpitas, California, June 24 (Bloomberg) -- Com21 Inc. shares fell 21 percent after the maker of cable modems failed to get certification from an industry standards group, an endorsement that 10 of its rivals have already received. Com21 fell 4 1/8 to 15 7/8 in trading of 10.6 million shares, making it the 11th-most active stock in U.S. markets. The shares are down 58 percent since reaching a high of 37 1/2 in April. Cable Television Laboratories Inc., better known as CableLabs, today said it certified the products of five more cable-modem makers, bringing the number of companies whose products are approved for retail sale to 10. Com21 isn't among the companies certified to sell the devices that provide high- speed Internet access over cable-TV lines. ''The market was hoping Com21 would receive certification,'' said Joel Achramowicz, an analyst with Preferred Capital Markets who rates the stock ''buy.'' Achramowicz said he thinks the drop in the company's stock is ''overdone,'' and expects the company to get certification soon. DOCSIS Standard Companies that make cable modems and the so-called head-end equipment to which the modems connect submit their products for testing to CableLabs, whose certification board includes officials from the biggest North American cable operators, such as AT&T Corp., Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp. The products are tested and their specifications are compared to those required under the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification standard, or DOCSIS, CableLabs spokesman Mike Schwartz said. CableLabs conducts certification rounds that last about six weeks. The next round ends in August, and the companies whose products pass the tests will be certified in mid-September, said Schwartz, who declined to comment on the testing of products from any specific company. ''Unless the cable operators are comfortable with a product's performance relative to the standard, they won't certify it,'' he said. The companies whose products were approved today include top networking company Cisco Systems Inc., the consumer unit of Royal Philips Electronics NV, Samsung Electronics, Sony Corp. and Askey Computer Corp. Com21 said in a statement the company plans to enter the next certification round. ''While we are disappointed with the current results, we are very close to achieving final certification, and extremely pleased with the progress we have made during the certification process,'' Com21 President and Chief Executive Peter Fenner said in a statement. Other makers of cable-modem equipment whose products have been approved for retail sale by CableLabs include Toshiba Corp., Thomson Consumer Electronics, 3Com Corp., General Instrument and Arris Interactive.