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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Biddle who wrote (30902)	1/8/2003 5:11:57 PM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 196499

CTIA Emphasizes LNP For Consumers, Carriers By Mark Rockwell, January 8, 2003 Wireless Week wirelessweek.com WASHINGTON-CTIA President and CEO Tom Wheeler says his last year at the association will be the year 'someone speaks up for the consumer' about inequities in wireless regulation. And he wants to make special efforts on the local number portability issue, starting with getting regulators on the path to reconfigure the regulatory landscape for LNP issues. At a press briefing today, Wheeler cited a number of issues, including service coverage, E911, regulatory necessity and LNP as CTIA's priorities for the coming year. However, he emphasized that LNP rules for wireless and wireline carriers should be brought more in line with each other. As things stand now, wireless LNP is 'a fraud on consumers' because wireline carriers aren't required to port their numbers to wireless carriers unless there's a wireline switch located at the same 'rate center' as a wireless switch. Wireless carriers have switches in only one of eight wireline rate centers, meaning, according to Wheeler, that 90 percent of wireline customers that request to take their telephone number with them to a new wireless account can't do so. 'Ninety percent of numbers won't be portable between wireline and wireless carriers,' he says. 'When you create an environment where 90 percent of callers are denied what they want' regulators aren't doing their jobs, he says. Applying the same requirements on wireline carriers for LNP as are required of wireless carriers should be the aim of any LNP regulation, he says. 'Our petition says, 'if you're going to do [LNP], do it right,'' he says. Along those lines, CTIA recently filed a motion at the D.C. circuit court asking that it decide on whether there is a level playing between wireline and wireless companies when in comes to LNP. The filing won't affect an approaching Nov. 24 deadline for wireless carriers to implement some LNP, according to Wheeler.

To: John Biddle who wrote (30902)	1/8/2003 5:46:18 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 196499

John, the swinging pendulum theory (that investors were moving into dividend paying stocks before the proposal to cut the dividend tax) is the kind of spin one would expect from a generally conservative newspaper. Investors will choose between dividends and growth/capital appreciation according to their own particular needs. If prospects for capital gains look poor, then investors will seek less volatile opportunities where dividends are part and parcel of the expected return. The effect of the proposal is to increase investor interest in dividend paying stocks and DECREASE motivation to invest in growth stocks. To neutralize this bias, the administration added a provision to cut capital gains taxes according to the amount of retained earnings, but calculating such a figure would make it almost impossible to implement. There are other, better alternatives. One is to exempt the first $1000 of dividends and/or interest from taxes, which would help many small investors. This feature used to in the income tax statutes back in the 70's (with a maximum of $400 exempted). Another is to index capital gains for inflation, thereby compensating for the additional risk one takes when investing for growth. At least these alternatives can be easily implemented, without at the same time reducing the NECESSARY REVENUES that the government must collect in order to avoid increasing the tax burden on our children and grandchildren. The proposal is not good for companies like QUALCOMM. It was not well thought out, but that's nothing new, is it? Art