Seeking Alpha: Ciena Isn't Done Yet

Optical telecom equipment maker Ciena (CIEN) has pulled back, and it's time to consider buying the dip.

"Wait for a pullback" and "buy on a dip" are some of the most hackneyed pieces of investment advice out there, and there's often an important detail missing. While it often does make a great deal of sense to buy good stocks on a momentary setback, what investors are seldom reminded of is that buying on these occasions often requires a lot of fortitude. After all, there's usually some near-term reason why the shares are trading down and climbing aboard a stock just as it is careering off a cliff is an experience that sticks with you.

Ciena has certainly seen the pace of sales growth and margin improvements slacken, but I believe this will prove to be a pause that refreshes. There still seem to be long-term legs to the equipment/network upgrade cycle, and Ciena has reemerged as a share gainer in the space. Investors can't ignore the risk that 2014 sees sales growth slow after the double-digit growth in fiscal 2013, but the valuation here is appealing.

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Ciena Isn't Done Yet

Investopedia: Vodafone, Verizon (And AT&T?) Go Once More Unto The Breach

Good ideas have a way of hanging around and figuring out a way to unwind the split ownership of Verizon Wireless is a good idea. With that, Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and Vodafone (NYSE:VOD) are back at work on a way to forge a mutually beneficial arrangement to bring Verizon Wireless fully under the ownership and control of Verizon. If reports of Verizon being more flexible on price and Vodafone being more flexible on deal structure are true, there's a good chance this deal gets done, but I still wouldn't rule out the possibility of AT&T (NYSE:T) having a role to play before it's all said and done.

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Investopedia: AT&T Makes One Small Step For Leap

Maybe AT&T (NYSE:T) was insurmountably frustrated in its rumored attempt to buy all or part of Telefonica (NYSE:TEF), or maybe there never was any substance to that rumor. In any case, in lieu of the $150 billion or so that Telefonica would have cost, AT&T's surprising announcement Friday night that it was acquiring Leap Wireless (Nasdaq:LEAP) for $4 billion seems like a much smaller step.

This is a curious deal on multiple fronts. Leap is not a particularly strong company, and it is not as thought AT&T is badly hurting for spectrum. Instead, this may be a case of AT&T flexing its financial muscles to make life harder on its competition (especially T-Mobile (Nasdaq:TMUS) and Sprint (NYSE:S)) and deny this asset to other potential bidders.

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http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/071513/att-makes-one-small-step-leap-t-leap-s-tmus-dish.aspx

Investopedia: Turkcell Is Undervalued, But Also A Complete Mess

It's typically a given that undervalued stocks come with a “but”. In other words, there's usually a reason that a stock is trading below fair value and it's up to investors to decide if the prevailing sentiment is overlooking the longer-term opportunity. In the case of Turkcell (NYSE:TKC), that's a very difficult question to answer. On one hand, the company's improving post-paid subscriber base and generally more rational competition bode well for profits. On the other hand, Turkey is going through a very dangerous time and the the squabbling between Turkcell's major shareholders have prevented the company from paying a dividend for multiple years now.

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http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/062513/turkcell-undervalued-also-complete-mess-tkc-tur-vod-tlsny-vz-t.aspx

Investopedia: France Telecom Under Pressure From Both Sides

It certainly fits a lot of American stereotypes about France to see the incumbent telecom operator (and leading wireless provider) France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) struggling with operating efficiencies and high employee costs. What may not be stereotypical, but is nevertheless true, is that brutal free capitalist-style competition is likewise putting a lot of pressure on the company's revenue generation in its home territory. Although arguably too cheap by several metrics, France Telecom has a worrisome capital and expense structure and relatively uninspiring growth potential.

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http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/062413/france-telecom-under-pressure-both-sides-fte-tef-vod-t.aspx

Investopedia: The SoftBank-Sprint-Clearwire-Dish Network Game Of Musical Chairs Seems Over

In a process that has taken eight months now, it looks like SoftBank is going to succeed in its attempt to acquire Sprint (NYSE:S), and that Sprint is going to succeed in its attempt to acquire the remainder of Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR). The fly in both ointments, Dish Networks (Nasdaq:DISH) has apparently abandoned its efforts to acquire Sprint, and likewise appears to be unwilling to try to once again top Sprint's bid for Clearwire.

This all probably brings this particular chapter to a close, but those who think the story in U.S. wireless, broadband, and telecom M&A is over don't know the nature of the parties involved.

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Investopedia: Enthusiasm Over SK Telecom Has Gone Far Enough

Investors don't love telecom service providers like they used to, largely due to extreme competition that has made it difficult to grow revenue or improve margins, all the while spending billions on equipment to keep the network current. It's arguably worse in the case of SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM), as management here has made it clear that they believe they're able to do more than just run a telecom business and have deployed billions of dollars in questionable non-telecom investments. While the sharp run-up over the past year was largely reasonable, as it brought SK Telecom back into parity with many of its global peers, it's hard to argue that these shares deserve to go much higher.

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Investopedia: Does AT&T Have Global Ambitions?

Monday is often the day for deals and rumors, and a doozy in the telecom market quickly made the rounds. Depending upon which reports you believe, AT&T (NYSE:T) either made a bid for Telefonica (NYSE:TEF) and was rebuffed by the Spanish government, or no such approach was ever made. In either case, it is not altogether surprising that AT&T would be entertaining global ambitions, and Telefonica is certainly a business that could be worth quite a bit more if cleaned up and improved. By the same token, this is not the only potential asset that could appeal to AT&T.

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Investopedia: Ciena And Carrier Spending - They're Baaa-aack

As much as I've thought (and written) that Ciena (Nasdaq:CIEN) was a good way to play the eventual recovery in carrier spending, I couldn't personally get comfortable enough the long-term financial numbers to buy the shares for myself. While that didn't seem so bad over the recent months as the shares lagged the broader market, today's big reaction to second quarter earnings is a little hard to swallow for those of us on the sidelines. The good news, though, is that it really does seem like carrier spending has come back, and with that Ciena shares still look underpriced.

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Investopedia: DISH Network Makes Another Bid For Mobile

It's hard not to give some credit to DISH Network’s (Nasdaq:DISH) leadership for realizing that they've taken the satellite TV concept about as far as they can. Instead, the company has been acknowledging (for some time now) that the company needed a pretty significant strategic transformation- one that would allow the company to leverage its wireless spectrum and compete more directly in the growing mobile broadband market.

To that end, Monday's bid for Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) is bold, but not entirely surprising. In fact, I suggested a few months ago that DISH's bid for Clearwire (Nasdaq:CLWR) could be as much about forcing Sprint to the table as any particular desire to own Clearwire. Now the question is whether or not Sprint's board welcomes the overture, and whether Sprint's other bidder, Japan's Softbank, decides to up the ante.

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Investopedia: ADTRAN Looks To Rebound From A Pretty Miserable 2012

It's almost cliché to talk about how bad of a year 2012 was for communications equipment vendors dependent on American and European carrier spending. With core broadband access product sales down 13% in 2012, ADTRAN (Nasdaq:ADTN) definitely found itself among the laggards, with shares down more than 30% over the past year and well below the S&P 500.

But 2013 is a new year, and hope springs eternal in the hearts of tech investors. While investors should not discount the competitive risks from rivals like Calix (NYSE:CALX) and Alcatel Lucent (NYSE:ALU), there is reason for at least cautious optimism that carrier infrastructure deployments will lead to better results for ADTRAN. At a minimum, it certainly doesn't seem like the Street has priced this stock for particularly breathtaking performance.

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Investopedia: Verizon, AT&T, And Vodafone - Here We Go Again

Large companies aren't really famous for being good at sharing. With that in mind, the shared ownership of Verizon Wireless between Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and Vodafone (Nasdaq:VOD) has always seemed inherently unstable. While the companies once contemplated an IPO for the business, the decision to maintain the status quo has led to nearly annual speculations as to whether the two companies will reach agreement on some sort of M&A transaction.  

Whether it's due to real interest or just the fact that the market is in a dry patch for news prior to the next earnings cycle, these rumors have heated up once again. In an interesting twist, rumors are now including AT&T (NYSE:T) as a potential third party to facilitate a transaction that would essentially split up Vodafone between the two American carriers.

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Investopedia: Oracle Dials It Up In Telecom

Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL) doesn't do things halfway, and when the company announced its acquisition of Acme Packet (Nasdaq:APKT) it looked like only the beginning of the company's strategy to exploit the large telecom vertical. Now we know that the company really is serious, as it has followed the Acme Packet deal with an announcement that it intends to acquire networking vendor Tekelec from its private equity owners.

A Complimentary Deal With Interesting IP Ramifications
Right off the bat, acquiring Tekelec makes quite a bit of sense. Tekelec is a telecom equipment vendor that specializes in products that handle mobile traffic. In particular, the company focuses on areas like network signaling, policy control, and subscriber data management. Combined with Acme Packet's network control products/technology, Oracle will offer a cohesive hardware/software line-up in network control for large carrier customers like Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and AT&T (NYSE:T).

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Seeking Alpha: The Forecast For Synchronoss Looks Cloudy, With A Chance Of Outperformance

A certain segment of the tech investor community may loathe buzzwords like "cloud," but the reality is that it's a fixture of the landscape for now and the core of many public company business models. One such company is Synchronoss Technologies (SNCR), which has created a hosted service to handle mobile phone activations and transactions, as well as a white label personal cloud offering for mobile customers.

While significant future growth in the company's activation business is going to hinge on signing up additional Tier 1 service providers, the growth potential in customer cloud services is hardly trivial. I think investors would do well to ask if white label cloud services are destined to become a commodity, but these shares could still hold upside from today's level.

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The Forecast For Synchronoss Looks Cloudy, With A Chance Of Outperformance

Seeking Alpha: America Movil Still A Buy After Painful Margin Squeeze

For short-term investors, America Movil's (AMX) fourth quarter report was a wreck. For long-term investors, though, I don't think it changes much of anything. Weaker margins are never a good thing, but America Movil is following a long-term gameplan for wireless voice and data growth, and its rivals are going to hard-pressed to compete so fiercely on price indefinitely. America Movil is by no means the growth stock it once was, but today's steep earnings-induced decline and long-term plan make it a more interesting name for GARP investors.

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America Movil Still A Buy After Painful Margin Squeeze

Investopedia: Dish Network May Not Be Cheap, But It'll Be Interesting

Like DIRECTV (Nasdaq:DTV), Dish Network (Nasdaq:DISH) must face the difficult reality that pay TV is not only a more competitive market with the entry of AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ). It also must compete with on-demand options offered by a host of services like Hulu and Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX). Although the company doesn't look like a tremendous value today, it has a shrewd and savvy management team that could make things interesting.

Tough Times in Pay TV
For all of Dish Network's potential strategic options (more on this in a moment), the company's core satellite pay TV business has serious challenges. While Dish Network has a solid low-cost platform and offers products such as "Hopper" to its customers, the company has nevertheless been losing subs.

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Investopedia: Will A Sub-$3 Bid Get The Deal Done For Sprint?

When word came out last week that Sprint (NYSE:S) had approached Clearwire (Nasdaq:CLWR) with a $2.90 per share cash bid, the common reaction was that Sprint would have to do better. Well, Sprint has done better, and the Clearwire board has unanimously agreed, but I suspect that an extra 7 cents per share is not going to thrill Clearwire's investors.

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Investopedia: The Long Awaited Sprint-Clearwire Deal Is Closer Than Ever

Given large ongoing losses and sizable funding needs, most investors have considered it a given that Clearwire (Nasdaq:CLWR) will be acquired. With its approximate 50.5% ownership stake, meaningful high-end spectrum needs and a recent influx of capital from Japan's Softbank, Sprint (NYSE:S) was seen as the most likely candidate. Now it seems like Sprint is finally making its move, but the market reaction and relative valuation suggest Sprint may have some work left to do.

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Investopedia: The Street Seems All In On Ciena's Recovery

Optical networking company Ciena (Nasdaq:CIEN) reported sales below expectations and lowered its guidance for the fiscal first quarter ... so of course the stock is up about 2% (as of this writing) after the announcement. That's just part of the weirdness that surrounds providers of carrier equipment these days - while 2012 was a pretty rough year, analysts and investors expect big carriers like AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ) to start spending again soon. Although Ciena is difficult to value today because of the uncertainty of the pace of the spending recovery, I still believe this is an interesting stock for aggressive investors thinking a few moves ahead.

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Seeking Alpha: Taking Setbacks In Stride, MTN Group Should Be Ready To Outperform

To at least some extent, this has been one of those "if it can go wrong, it will" years for South Africa's MTN Group (MTNOY.PK). And yet, despite setbacks in Nigeria, Iran, and Syria, MTN Group continues to post solid revenue growth, expanding margins, and excellent returns on capital, while generating more cash than it needs to run the business. While political risk is always going to shadow MTN Group, this looks like an undervalued play on one of the best remaining growth stories in mobile services.

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Taking Setbacks In Stride, MTN Group Should Be Ready To Outperform