Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Cisco Systems, Qualcomm, Alcatel-Lucent, American Tower and Google

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – March 17, 2010 – 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: Cisco Systems (CSCO - Analyst Report), Qualcomm (QCOM - Analyst Report), Alcatel-Lucent (ALU - Analyst Report), American Tower (AMT - Analyst Report) and Google (GOOG - Analyst Report).

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Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

US Broadband: FCC’s Blueprint

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has outlined its goals for the “National Broadband Plan” (NBP), which the agency will deliver to the Congress on March 16, 2010. The regulator has drafted ambitious proposals that will revolutionize the US broadband industry and provide the necessary infrastructure to connect all the corners of the nation.

As a reminder, the NBP is aimed at setting up strategies and appropriate regulatory framework to promote adoption, affordability and wider availability of broadband Internet in the US. Under the directives of Congress, the FCC has chalked out action plans to ensure far-reaching accessibility of broadband in the country.

As expected, the FCC’s blueprint includes the previously announced "100 Squared" initiative. The agency expects Internet service providers to offer broadband speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to roughly 100 million US homes by 2020. Existing broadband networks offer speeds in the range of 3−10 Mbps.

The FCC aims at making the US the world's largest market for fast Internet usage. The 100 Squared initiative will boost investment in broadband that will benefit network equipment vendors like Cisco Systems (CSCO - Analyst Report), Qualcomm (QCOM - Analyst Report) and Alcatel-Lucent (ALU - Analyst Report). Moreover, tower companies such as American Tower (AMT - Analyst Report) should also benefit as more cellular towers will be built.

Another ambitious proposal featuring in the FCC’s six-page executive summary is to provide Americans affordable access to ultra-high speed broadband that delivers peak speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), nearly 100 times faster than today’s regular broadband deployments. The proposal, which should benefit key institutions such as schools, hospitals and military bases, follows Google’s (GOOG - Analyst Report) recent 1-Gig initiative.

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Read the full analyst report on CSCO

Read the full analyst report on QCOM

Read the full analyst report on ALU

Read the full analyst report on AMT

Read the full analyst report on GOOG