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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: S100 who wrote (114623)	2/27/2002 2:03:19 PM
From: S100	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

QCOM accounting seems to be playing accounting tricks much like the tricks played to meet revenue covered in this article in the current issue of Red Herring. snip When I first phoned Qwest's chairman and CEO, Joseph Nacchio, with some questions, my call got bucked to a public relations aide, who tried to wave it all away, But when I persisted, he said, "Look, we put out an elaborate statement about all that at the time. I'll get it for you," as if it were the most routine matter imaginable. A day went by with nothing. But then I received the following two-sentence "official" response from the company: "Qwest follows generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) rules in how it accounts for Qwest-Dex. We discussed our activity in a 10- K filed about March 2001" We'll get into the particulars of my inquiries in a minute, but first let's focus on the implications of the kiss-off I received. It suggests that whatever Qwest has been doing with its accounting, it's been doing it with the seal of approval of its auditors, Arthur Andersen. And that's a problem if what insiders at Qwest have been telling me is true: that the company has apparently been pumping up its revenue and earnings in its directories business as part of a drive to prettify its financials in the face of the deepening mess in the telecommunications industry. Let me offer a bit of context. Qwest began in the '80s as a fiber-optics subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad, laying fiber along the railroad's right-of-way. The man behind the business was a chap named Philip Anschutz, who had acquired the Southern Pacific through a leveraged deal with an obscure railroad that he owned named the Denver & Rio Grande Western. In January 1997, Mr. Anschutz hired Joseph Nacchio, who had previously headed AT&T's consumer and long distance business, and six months later they took the company public in an IPO at $22 per share. In the wake of the collapse, the biggest single negative in the entire company was, of course, the fiber operation, where prices of broadband services had collapsed amid the spread of stupefying overcapacity throughout the industry. This meant that the u.s. West division-with steady cash flow from telephone services and its yellow pages publishing operation became a cornerstone of financial support for the entire company. Here's where it gets interesting. Key sources from within the company say that as 2000 drew to a close, enormous pressure was placed on "- the company's yellow pages publishing executives to meet 2001 what the sources say were "completely unattainable" revenue and earnings numbers for the publishing group. To meet the targets, the sources say the publishing executives were instructed by higher-ups at the corporate level to engage in what the sources describe as a "manipulation of the directory publishing schedule." In the manipulation, yellow pages directories that had previously been published in January of every year were pulled forward and published a few weeks earlier, in December. As a result, the associated revenue could be declared in 2000, thereby allowing the company to meet a 10 percent revenue growth target for its publishing segment. This seems eerily similar to the eerily similar to the so-called channel-stuffing ploy used by Sunbeam-another of Arthur Andersen's erstwhile clients- which met its revenue growth targets by shipping merchandise to distributors months before the distributors needed the goods. The sources say this phone-book version of channel stuff- snip After all, it was just last January, about one week before QCOM held their CC and released their earnings for the quarter that closed at the end of December, when Globalfrt defaulted on their bonds and QCOM, those tricky guys, went back and took a big bath on their Globalfrt assets. Hid lots their earnings that way and then used some phony regulation to spread out other earnings over many years not very long ago. Wonder where else they are hiding earnings with phony accounting tricks designed to provide the best long term results for QCOM? Options? Retained earnings? Yawn.

To: S100 who wrote (114623)	6/9/2002 12:04:11 AM
From: waitwatchwander	Respond to of 152472

Consumer-friendly phone rules proposed Todd Wallack, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, June 7, 2002 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Responding to a tidal wave of telephone gripes, the California Public Utilities Commission Thursday proposed a sweeping new version of a telecommunications bill of rights to protect consumers against everything from deceptive marketing to privacy violations. PUC Commissioner Carl Wood, who has been working on the draft for more than two years, said the plan would largely replace a complex maze of regulations, which often vary dramatically from one type of carrier to another, with a simpler list of rules that apply industrywide. "The rules will be clear to everyone," Wood said at a press conference. "Even if consumers have these rights (already), they don't know that they have them." Consumer advocates hailed the proposal, saying it goes far beyond existing regulations and could set a precedent for other states. If the other four commissioners go along with the plan, telephone companies would be required to directly notify customers of any rate changes 25 days in advance. Current federal regulations require long-distance companies to post changes within 24 hours on their Web site. Californians would be able to cancel a mobile-phone contract within 30 days without paying an early termination fee -- addressing complaints that customers often sign up for a cell plan only to find out the service doesn't work in their home, office or other key spot. The rules would also require companies to get customers' signatures before making any major changes to a written contract. "The CPUC is finally striking back on behalf of consumers," said Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a San Diego consumer watchdog group. Still, Shames said he wishes the PUC proposal would go further. State regulators received more than 21,000 complaints last year about telephone bills, triple the 1996 tally. The PUC is expected to vote on the plan as early as August, but Wood expects stiff resistance from wireless carriers, which are exempt from most existing regulations and want to keep it that way. "We don't need the commission telling us what to do," said Michael Bagley, director of public policy for Verizon Wireless. Bagley said the new rules could cost Verizon millions of dollars by forcing it to create a special type of bill just for California subscribers. In addition, Bagley said the rules are unneeded because wireless companies already have to keep customers happy to discourage them from jumping to competitors. "The marketplace is the best place to address" concerns, he said. But Pacific Bell, which has complained for years that it has been saddled with more-onerous regulations than wireless and long-distance rivals, said the proposal would help level the playing field. "We think it's smart to have rules that affect the entire industry," Britton said. In addition to the list of 14 specific rules, the plan includes a less- controversial set of seven broad rights, ranging from privacy to accurate bills. The complete proposal is online at www.cpuc.ca.gov. sfgate.com