Ethernet Providers in Hot Competition

Bandwidth demand is up, but budgets aren’t. One new technology that addresses that situation is Ethernet WAN connections. They’ve become a fierce competitor to legacy T1 lines and, in many locations, it’s Ethernet provider vs Ethernet provider fighting “tooth and nail” to make the best offer.

Why all the hoopla about a protocol that’s been running on LANs for decades? It’s the standardization of Ethernet as a carrier technology by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) that’s catapulted Ethernet services from LAN to MAN to WAN. In literally a matter of a few years, Ethernet has gone from a niche product to the transport service of choice.

Why? Ethernet has some big advantages over legacy technologies. First, it provides seamless connectivity between nearly all company networks and the outside world. No special interface circuitry or protocol conversion is required. Just plug into a standard Ethernet connector and you are good to go.

Second, Ethernet services are readily scalable. The same standard speeds found on Local Area Networks are supported. These are 10 Mbps Ethernet, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet and 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet. More and more, 10 GigE service is also becoming available. Most Ethernet providers also provide incremental bandwidths from 2 Mbps on up. There’s a huge gap between T1 at 1.5 Mbps and T3 at 45 Mbps. Ethernet services offer many intermediate speeds to choose from.

In fact, scalability is a big selling point for Ethernet. It’s common for companies to order an Ethernet port that can support their anticipated bandwidth needs, but then only buy the bandwidth they need right now. When business picks up, it’s fast and easy to have the service provider increase bandwidth right up to the capacity of the installed port.

Ethernet delivery comes in two primary forms. One is Ethernet over Copper, also called EoC. Multiple copper telephone pair are used to deliver this service within a few miles of the nearest carrier point of presence. Popular bandwidths are 3 Mbps and 10 Mbps, although you might get as much as 50 Mbps if you are near a carrier POP. EoC makes installation fast and easy. Nearly every business has a telco bundle with multiple copper pair available.

EoF or Ethernet over Fiber is used to provide the higher bandwidths of 50 Mbps and above. That includes the popular 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps levels. Larger corporations and organizations may opt for 10 GigE or even 40 Gbps and beyond.

What’s got service providers in hot competition is more than these benefits, however. The most attractive feature of Ethernet service is that it tends to be much less costly than traditional telecom services. Getting twice the bandwidth for the same price is common. At higher speeds and in areas of greater competition, the difference between Ethernet and other options can be jaw dropping.

Everyone’s inquiring about Ethernet for new service or as a replacement for their existing connectivity. Shouldn’t you at least take a look? Get multiple quotes for Ethernet service delivered to your business location or locations now.

What Utility has Increased its Dividend Every Year Over 25 Years (Actually there are 3)

When a company increases its dividend every year for over a quarter of a century, it says a lot about the company's continued strength of earnings, and it also shows dedication to shareholders. There aren't many companies around that can claim that track record, maybe less than fifty. And of that group, only two and a half are utility stocks (I'll explain the half shortly).

One of these classic stocks is the ever popular Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED), a provider of electric, gas, and steam utility services in New York City and Westchester County. In terms of yield, it shows up about halfway down the list of electric utilties at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, at 4.8%. The stock has a forward price to earnings ratio of 14.

The second utility to make this exclusive club is Integrys Energy Group, Inc. (TEG), an electric and gas utility that serves Chicago, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. The stock has a yield that is a bit higher than Con Ed, paying out 5.1%. The company trades at 16 times forward earnings. Operating income of $1.12 billion provides excellent coverage for dividend payouts of $210 million.

Now to the reason I mentioned two and a half companies. The third company isn't technically a utility; it is considered an oil and gas company. It is the Salt Lake City, Utah based Questar Corporation (STR), a producer and explorer of oil and natural gas. But it also provides retail natural gas distribution services so it could be put in the natural gas utility category. The stock yields 3.3% and trades at 15 times forward earnings. Operating cash flow of $1.15 billion is far more than dividend payouts of $98 billion.

If you want to see a free list of all the top yielding electric and gas utility stocks, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author didn't know any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Judge Tells LimeWire to Disable Its Software

Judge Kimba M Wood in the Federal District Court in Manhattan has issued a permanent injunction that will essentially shut down LimeWire, the music file-sharing service that has been embroiled in a four-year legal struggle with the music industry. The case has already resulted in the company and its founder being found liable for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages (see More Freshly Squeezed Lime, 18th June 2010 and Squeezing the Lime Dry , 12th June 2010 on this Blog) The company says that it will continue negotiations with the major music companies in an effort to offer music legally for sale with a subscription service but in her ruling, the Judge ordered the company to disable “searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality” of the company’s file-sharing software.

Visitors to LimeWire’s Web site were greeted with a legal notice and the text: “downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal.” In a statement the Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry’s trade group that had led the legal action, said: “For the better part of the last decade, LimeWire and [founder Mark] Gorton have violated the law. The court has now signed an injunction that will start to unwind the massive piracy machine that LimeWire and Gorton used to enrich themselves immensely.” In May, Judge Wood ruled that the company had violated copyright law and was liable for damages. The court is scheduled to decide early next year the amount the company and Mr. Gorton will be forced to pay. “In January, the court will conduct a trial to determine the appropriate level of damages necessary to compensate the record companies for the billions and billions of illegal downloads that occurred through the LimeWire system,” the RIAA said in its statement. Music publishers have brought a separate action led by EMI Music.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/technology/27limewire.html?_r=1 http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9193499/Like_Grokster_LimeWire_felled_by_secondary_liability_law?taxonomyId=70

Marijuana Legalization Stocks

On Tuesday, November 2, California residents will be voting on Proposition 19, the ballot measure that, if passed, would legalize limited quantities of marijuana for recreational use. This has created plenty of fodder for news reports. The New York Times just reported on the marijuana related domain name land grab. UPI reported that a marijuana dispensary in San Francisco would give away free joints whenever the Giants hit a home run during the World Series. And to top it off, The Wall Street Journal posted an editorial by billionaire investor George Soros, in which he says he supports the legalization of marijuana.

Unfortunately, most of the plays on legalization involve very low cap stocks, according to the list of 20 marijuana stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com. However, for the medical use of marijuana and its derivatives, there are larger companies that produce such products as Marinol, a trademark of Solvay SA (SVYSF.PK) and Nabilone, marketed as Cesamet by Valeant Pharmaceuticals International (VRX), which trades on the New York Stock Exchange. Nabilone, a synthetic cannabinoid, is used to treat chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, anorexia, and weight loss in AIDS patients.

Valeant also markets Fluorouracil, a cancer treatment drug, and Diastat, a seizure drug. This $4.38 billion market cap stock trades at 30 times earnings, and pays a yield of 1.4%. Earnings for the latest reported quarter were up 41% year over year on a 23% increase in revenues. The company will have its next earnings announcement on November 4.

Par Pharmaceutical Companies (PRX), a $1.14 billion market cap company markets Dronabinol, a form of Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC. However, this is a small part of the business as the company markets dozens of other drugs. The stock has a PE ratio of 13.9 and trades at one times sales. Earnings will be reported November 3.

GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPRF.PK) produces Sativex, an oral spray with tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, which is used to treat multiple sclerosis patients, and also for treating pain in cancer patients. Earnings for the quarter ending March 31 were negative. The company will be reporting earnings on November 23.

To see the complete free list of twenty marijuana stocks, which shows the symbol, PE ratio, price sales ratio, yield, market capitalization, and business description, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author didn't own any of the above stocks at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Why It Is So Hard to Start Your Own Business

Stocks Going Ex Dividend the Third Week of November

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends'. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets. In flat or choppy markets, your have to be extremely careful.

In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable Excel list of the stocks going ex dividend during the next week or two. The list contains many dividend paying companies, all with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date and the yield.

Just in time for Halloween, The Hershey Company (HSY) market cap: $11.5B ex div date: 11/22/2010 yield: 2.5%

Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT) market cap: $15.9B ex div date: 11/22/2010 yield: 2.3%

The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found at wsnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn't show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out the high yield utility stocks and the Monthly Dividend Stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WSNN.com.

Dividend definitions:

Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.

Record date: the day when you must be on the company's books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Don't forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.

Disclosure: Author does not own any of the above at the time article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Call Overseas For Pennies From Your Cell Phone

Once your cell phone became your one personal and business phone, the idea of getting a better deal on landline long distance calls became moot. What good is a landline if you are never near one? What you really want is the ability to get great service on your mobile phone. You’ve got domestic telephone and broadband already. What you need is cheap international calling.

TEL3 knew this was coming and created their TEL3Advantage service to meet the need of mobile users in the US and Canada. Most of us have at least some occasions to call friends, family or business contacts in other countries. What we haven’t had until now was an affordable way to do that on a cell phone.

TEL3Advantage is an international long distance service that you access from your mobile phone. You are not changing cellular providers or adding any other contractual services. This is strictly a pay as you go add-on calling service. That means it works from any make or model cell phone and on any wireless service. In fact, you can even use it from a landline on those occasions when you are at your desk phone or at home.

What kind of rates are we talking about? Pennies per minute, literally. For instance, calls to China are 1.32 cents per minute. Want an even better deal? You can call China right now for a penny a minute with the special promotional rate. It’s good for your first 30 days of service. Call Asia and chat all you want. It’s cheap. Rates to Europe are dirt cheap, too. How about 3 cents a minute to Germany? That’s low, alright.

As if the deal wasn’t good enough already, you get free minutes upon signup. How many depends on how much you plunk down. How it works is that you prepay an amount from $10 to $100 from your major credit card or PayPal . The cost of your calls is paid out of that initial purchase. When you get low, you simply recharge your account to make more calls. If you decide you don’t need or want the service anymore, just don’t add any more money. There’s no contract cancellation fee because there is no contract to begin with. There’s even a 30 day money back guarantee. If you don’t like the service within the first 30 days, you’ll get a refund of the balance you haven’t used for calls. Truly, there is much to gain and nothing to lose.

Call quality is high, connections are fast and don’t require a PIN number, you can manage your account easily online, and the service works from any phone in the USA or Canada. But, wait, there’s more!

Do you have an iPhone? Get the TEL3Dialer APP from the iPhone App Store and you can dial from your address book or dial directly without entering any access numbers or PINs. The rates are the same as if you had dialed a local access number.

But what about other cell phone users who don’t have iPhones? You are also in luck. There are TEL3 Apps for Blackberry and over 400 cell phone models. Simply access your online account once you sign up and then download the “Smartplug Software” that is appropriate for your phone. Once installed, you’ll see a TEL3 logo added to your applications and you are good to call.

Ready to enable your cell phone for low cost international calls? It takes just a few minutes to order TEL3Advantage international prepaid long distance service. Then, talk all you like. It’s that inexpensive.

Venture Capital Investment with a 7.2% Yield

Private equity companies take large positions in private companies, and sometimes own the entire companies. Often, these companies are referred to as venture capital firms. Sometimes, the only way to invest in a 'hot' company is through a private equity company. As an example, many years ago, I invested in a company called the Nautilus Fund, which happened to own an equity position in some small privately owned technology company with the odd name of Apple (AAPL).

At the time, I was using an Apple II computer with the Visicalc spreadsheet program. I couldn't believe that calculations could be done so easily on a small machine and then printed out. I was working for an investment firm at the time and wanted to invest in this little Apple company, but unfortunately, it wasn't publicly traded. Fortunately, I read in a Forbes article that a publicly traded venture capital company called the Nautilus Fund, had an equity interest in Apple. So to make a long story short, I bought some Nautilus for myself and some relatives, Apple went public, and Apple shares were spun off to the Nautilus shareholders.

Of course, investing in private equity can be very risky, which is why most private private equity firms are private. The few publicly traded ones gives smaller investors an opportunity to participate in this potentially very lucrative investment arena. To cut down on risk, many investors seek out the ones that invest in debt of private companies in addition to equity, so that income can be generated for the shareholders.

An example is Gladstone Capital Corporation (GLAD), which is structured as a closed-end management investment company. The company diversifies its portfolio by investing in both equity and debt securities, and allocating funds towards both small and medium-sized private companies. Gladstone, which has paid monthly dividends for many years, generates a yield of 7.2%. The stock trades at 12.8 times forward earnings and sells for about 3.5% below book value.

Gladstone provides financing for a very diverse portfolio of companies across many industries, including Country Club Enterprises which is the sole distributor of Club Car and E-Z-Go golf carts in the northeast U.S., Legend Communications of Wyoming which is the largest radio operator in their region, Reliable Biopharmaceutical which is a manufacturer of high value advanced pharmaceutical and biochemical products for the generic injectable pharmaceutical industry, Cavert Wire which is the largest supplier of non-galvanized bailing wire in the country, Newhall Laboratories which markets La Bella™, Golden Sun™, and Rebound™ personal care products, B-Dry which is the oldest basement waterproofer in the U.S., Access Television Network which distributes infomercials and other paid programming through about 300 cable television systems, and Westlake Hardware which is the largest member of the ACE Hardware Corporation buying cooperative.

Gladstone's earning announcement will be held November 22.

If you like high yield stocks, such as REITs, utilities, and ETFs, check out the free downloadable lists at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author owns AAPL at the time the article is written.

By Stockerblog.com

Don’t forget the magic word . . .

A German court has ordered a museum to take down photographs of a Joseph Beuys performance work, The Silence of Marcel Duchamp is Overrated, originally staged on live TV in 1964. The court held that the performance piece is protected under copyright law and that the photographs were infringements – as unauthorized adaptation or transformation (Article 23 of Germany’s copyright law). The museum is appealing on the basis that the photos are not artistic transformations or adaptations of the original work but are documentary in nature. The claimant, Beuys’s widow, says the exhibition misrepresented her husband’s work.

The Cardozo Art Law Society blog wonders how else performance art should be documented. With permission, perhaps?

MPLS Service Providers Link Your Business Locations

It’s common for businesses to have multiple locations that need to be tied together with voice, data and sometimes video services. These can be branch offices, remote data centers, warehouses, franchises, factories and other business locations. What’s needed is a simple, cost effective way to link geographically diverse locations. MPLS service providers are ready to do just that.

Why MPLS? After all, there have been telecommunications services available for decades that can link one site to another. T1 point to point lines are readily available just about anywhere you need service. The public telephone network connects any phone to any other phone in the world. So what is it that MPLS networks have to offer that is new and different?

What MPLS is all about is privately owned and operated networks that serve large regions of the United States, some with national and even international footprints. These are what are also called “cloud networks.” The beauty of the cloud is that you don’t personally have to worry about the intricacies of wiring up and operating the many, many connections linking sites within the cloud. That’s all taken care of by the MPLS service providers. All you need is a link to the MPLS network from each of your locations. The network operator takes care of setting up the connections among your sites per your specification.

You might think that MPLS networks sound a bit like the Internet, and you’d be right. The similarity is in the way they make connections from anywhere to anywhere else. But that’s where the similarity ends. The Internet is a public resource with no quality of service mechanisms. If particular nodes get congested, packets wait or get lost. The Internet automatically sets up routing on the fly, so you never really know how your packets are getting from point A to point B. They just do somehow.

MPLS networks are engineered around predictable and dependable performance. Routing is done by a proprietary tagging protocol unique to MPLS networks. That makes them far more secure to outside intruders than the Internet. The tag switches have determinate paths that don’t change unless there is an equipment failure that needs to be worked around. Bandwidth, jitter, latency and packet loss are carefully controlled for each customer of the network.

What this all means is that MPLS networks work well for business users that set high standards for the quality, reliability and security of their telephone conversations and data transfers between locations. What MPLS providers can do is offer you a substantial cost savings over building your own private network to link multiple business locations. This is especially true if you have many locations scattered across a wide geographical area, including international offices.

How much of a cost difference is there between an MPLS network solution and what you are doing now for connectivity or have under consideration? Find out quickly and easily with a short inquiry to our knowledgeable Telarus consultants. They’ll get you competitive quotes from MPLS service providers that will clearly show how much you can save.

Plenty of Oil Income Royalty Trusts Yielding Over 5.5%

Over the last month, the price of crude oil has increased from $77 a barrel to $82 a barrel, an increase of 6.5%. Income investors that want exposure to oil and gas have many options. Several of the multinational oil companies have decent yields, such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) with a 2.7% yield and ConocoPhillips (COP), which has a 3.6% yield.

However, for the really high yields, investors have to turn to the oil income royalty trusts and the oil master limited partnerships or MLPs. In both cases, income generated avoids double taxation; virtually all earnings are passed through to the shareholders without being taxed at the company level.

Of these options, the royalty trusts have many advantages over the partnerships. Limited partnerships don't send out 1099 forms, they send out a Schedule K-1 Form, and the income is reported on your tax return differently from regular dividends, with additional forms and preparation time involved. In addition, you should never put an MLP into a retirement plan because of the UBTI or Unrelated Business Taxable Income problem, which could put the tax deferred status of your retirement plan in jeopardy, based on my understanding. However, since I am not an accountant, I am not giving tax advice so please discuss MLP's with your accountant or CPA for clarification, before investing in MLPs.

The royalty trusts don't have this problem as they send out 1099's on their income distributions, similar to dividends. According to a list just developed at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, there are nine different oil royalty income trusts with yields ranging from 5.7% to 13%. For example, Cross Timbers Royalty Trust (CRT), with a price to earnings ratio of 15, sports a yield of 8.1%. This trust owns 90% net profits interests in many royalty and overriding royalty interest properties in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. Distributions have been paid monthly since 1992.

Sabine Royalty Trust (SBR), founded in 1982, receives royalties from oil and gas properties in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. The stock has a PE ratio of 17 and a yield of 7.3%. This trust also pays monthly.

When you check out the free list of oil income investments at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, pay close attention to the last column, which shows the company structure, either limited partnership, trust, or LLC.

Disclosure: Author does not own any of the above.

By Stockerblog.com

Meeting Alert!

The WIPO Global Meeting on Emerging Copyright Licensing Modalities focusing on "Facilitating Access to Culture in the Digital Age" will take place November 4 & 5 in Geneva.

According to WIPO's press announcement:

"The meeting will gather governments, national and international public institutions, academics and an array of stakeholders involved in different copyright licensing practices. The goal of the meeting is to raise the awareness of Member States on the complexities underlining a vast variety of licensing practices in different sectors, including the online market for music, the software industry and open access publishing. The target topics will be analyzed and discussed from an intellectual property and a competition law perspective."

WIPO Director General Francis Gurry (pictured, left) will address attendees at the Opening Ceremony and Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig will present the Keynote Address. The featured panels will be presented by many highly respected members of the global IP Community.

Registration is possible through this link. This blogger will be stateside at the time of the event; if you attend, please feel free to share your thoughts about the program in the comments section or via email.

Ethernet Ports In a Data Storm

You may have noticed that your WAN network requirements are getting hard to predict. In times of economic instability, it’s hard to know whether you have the right amount of bandwidth for your business activities next year or even next quarter. What makes this especially unnerving is the historically long provisioning times for telecom service upgrades. What you need is a way to pay for just the bandwidth you need today while ensuring that you can rapidly increase network speed if the need suddenly arises.

That capability is yours with an Ethernet service port. You have such a port installed by a service provider at your location. Often, this is in the form of an RJ45 jack or a fiber optic connector on the back of a managed router. You simply plug your LAN network into this WAN port and you have connectivity to the outside world. Because it’s a managed connection, you can have nearly any bandwidth level up to the capacity of that installed port.

Let’s contrast that with what’s standard practice for other telecommunication services. The popular T1 line is generally provisioned on what’s known as a “smart jack” This is a RJ48 socket mounted on a small electronics box. You connect from the smart jack to the T1 card in your router that contains special CSU/DSU circuitry to decode the T1 signals. What’s important to note about this setup is that it has a fixed bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps. It’s possible to get what’s known as fractional T1 at less than 1.5 Mbps, but this is rarely cost effective anymore.

What happens when you have a T1 line and run out of bandwidth? You call up your service provider and order another T1 line. These lines can be bonded to produce a 3 Mbps data line. The entire process involves ordering and installing another telecom service, however long that takes in your area.

Now, let’s see what happens when you have 10 Mbps Ethernet delivered on a 50 Mbps port. Like the situation with a congested T1 line, you run out of bandwidth on your 10 Mbps service. Unlike the previous scenario, however, you call up your service provider and tell them you want to increase your bandwidth to 20 Mbps. They say “fine” and simply turn up your service to 20 Mbps. You can often do this with nothing more than a phone call. Nobody needs to come and drill holes or string more wires. It’s all done with software commands to your Ethernet CPE or Customer Premises Equipment.

The thing to remember about Ethernet ports is that the speed of the port is the maximum speed that it can handle. If you top out at the max port speed, you will likely need an equipment change to get more bandwidth. For that reason, be sure you order a port that has some growth potential even though you don’t need it right now. Some bandwidth headroom gives you an agility to ramp up WAN network speed incrementally as business increases.

Are you ready for a bandwidth increase, but feeling stifled by the limitations or cost of the telecom options you have now? Check prices and availability of Ethernet ports and bandwidth for your business location. Save money now and be ready for when you need a service upgrade quickly.

Print Smells onto Paper

Researchers at Keio University have come up with a way of printing various smells onto paper, using a standard Canon (CAJ) printer. The printer uses a scent jet instead of an ink jet to apply the scents onto paper.

Free iPad Engraving Starts Today

If you haven't bought me an Apple (AAPL) iPad yet for my Christmas present, that's OK. Because now you can have my name engraved on the back, for free. This free benefit starts today. It may take a little longer for the order and may hurt the resale value, but so what. A free benefit just in time for the holidays.

"Cast your seeds upon the database ..."

Which one is the seed ...?

In Beechwood House Publishing Ltd (t/a Binley's) v Guardian Products Ltd and another [2010] EWPCC 12, Judge Colin Birss QC gave judgment in a database right dispute in the Patents County Court. In an application for summary judgment, in which the defence was that the dispute had already settled, the court persuaded the parties to agree to treat the application as the trial of the settlement issue and then decided it properly, achieving a substantial saving of both time and expense.

The database in which infringement was alleged was "Binley's Database of GP Practices", which began in 1994.  This consists essentially of the names and addresses of individuals (such as nurses and doctors) associated with general medical practices. The edition allegedly infringed apparently names 159,576 individuals, located at 11,480 general practices within the UK. In pre-database right days this would have been a traditional copyright infringement claim.  Anyway, as the judge, explained:

"4 In August 2007 the claimant found clear evidence that the first defendant was using information from the claimant's database. This was because the claimant puts a few seeds in its database. The seeds are dummy entries which do not correspond to real people. They are fictitious entries with addresses corresponding to the claimant's staff. Thus the claimant will find out if someone is using data from its database because a letter will be sent to one of the seed addresses. That is what happened in this case and this action ensued.

5 The underlying facts are not in dispute. The mailing to the seed entry took place in about August 2007. The letter was sent by the first defendant. The first defendant obtained the data it used from the second defendant and the second defendant in turn obtained the data in March 2006 from an organisation called Bespoke Database Organisation Ltd ("BDOL"). The data from BDOL included the seed entry. There is no doubt that the BDOL data includes at least one entry from the claimant's database, that is the seed. There is also no doubt that BDOL used the claimant's database as one of the sources for the BDOL data. There is however an issue as to the extent of that use  ... If ... the claimant has a good claim to ownership and subsistence of database right and if ... the BDOL mailing list includes or consists of a substantial part of the claimant's database then it is not in dispute that the defendants infringed the claimant's database rights".

But what evidential value can be placed upon the fact that one or more seeds received a mailing from the defendant? Does this raise an inference of substantiality of the degree of copying? How many seeds were there in relation to the database a a whole? And suppose the defendant mailed only to seeds and not to genuine entries. Anyway, the judge addressed the seed issue thus:

"75 I am ... struck by the claimant's statement that there are "a few" seeds in the database. The claimant has not stated how many "a few" means and has so far refused to tell the defendants how many there are. No doubt that is for the claimant's own good commercial reasons. However it seems to me that one way of gauging the number of entries derived from the claimant's database might be to ask what proportion of the seed entries ended up with the defendants. Such an exercise would no doubt have to be treated with caution but it at least might shed some light on the matter. For example just because only one seed came to light does not mean others were not present. However if only one seed from hundred was present that might suggest a lesser fraction derive from the claimant whereas if "a few" means only 3 or 4 seed entries then that might suggest a rather higher fraction. Although substantiality is not necessarily a purely quantitative matter, some idea of numbers would be a start".

The case will now continue. The 1709 Blog expects events to accelerate since Judge Birss has said plainly that he expects the case to be dealt with very quickly and economically.

Ice cream shop out-‘fans’ S.F. Chronicle

The report yesterday that newspaper circulation declined another 5% in the latest reporting period got me thinking about ice cream for two reasons. First, anyone who loves newspapers would rather ruminate about rum raisin than the relentless, 20-year slide that has brought weekday circulation to less than 40 million copies today from an all-time high of 63.3 million as recently as 1984.

Level 3 Shows How The Converged Business Network Saves Money

Network convergence has been an initiative for larger organizations since IP became accepted as the default network protocol. But smaller companies, with smaller or non-existant IT staffs, have paid little attention. That’s all changed recently. Now, convergence is for everyone.

Why the big change? The primary driver is cost savings, as it has always been. Cost savings has become an ongoing business process in this era of continuing austerity. But the real enabler is the availability of managed convergence. The carrier becomes your partner rather than simply a vendor. This relieves you of the burden of network management, especially WAN network management.

Level 3 has entered this space with its Converged Business Network solution. The idea is to use one bandwidth pipe for voice, Internet and VPN instead of three separate pipes. In one example, Level 3 replaces three separate T1 lines at 1.5 Mbps each with a single 3 Mbps connection that handles everything. That 3 Mbps link could be bonded T1 lines, or it could be one of the newer Ethernet services. They show stand alone services at $ + $ + $ being reduced to converged services for $.

A 3 to 1 reduction? That’s not unreasonable. After all, 3 Mbps Ethernet over Copper services are often priced about the same as a single T1 line.

How can you get a 3:1 line cost reduction without destroying quality of service? The answer is in two pieces. First of all, the bandwidth reduction isn’t that dramatic. You are going from 4.5 Mbps to 3 Mbps. Cost is going down faster than bandwidth. Second, the question assumes fully loaded line services. That’s seldom the case. Many companies have T1 lines because that’s the smallest commercial grade line service available to them. They wind up ordering 3 lines in order to keep voice, Internet and VPN applications separate so they won’t interfere. In reality, only a fraction of that available 4.5 Mbps is needed at any given time.

This is how a converged 3 Mbps WAN network can do the same job cheaper. QoS or quality of service controls are maintained on that connection so that time sensitive voice packets have priority over less time-sensitive data packets. At times when there are fewer telephone conversations in progress, that bandwidth is released for use by the broadband Internet or VPN services. This is called dynamic bandwidth allocation. In a situation with separate lines, any unused capacity simply goes to waste. It is not available for any other use.

A converged voice and Internet service called Integrated T1 has been on the market for years. However, its availability has been spotty and its focus has been on traditional analog and PBX telephony rather than the more advanced features of enterprise VoIP systems. Level 3’s service goes way beyond Integrated T1 with Ethernet connection speeds up to 100 Mbps as a standard package. That makes it an attractive service for medium and larger companies that long ago outgrew their T1 lines.

Is your company on the lookout for ways to save money while preserving quality of services? If so, you should inquire about the cost and benefits of network convergence. You could be missing out on a major advantage for your business.

"TIGAR, TIGAR burning bright ..."

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has come up with some cheering news here: according to a media release "Stakeholders’ Platform Launches Project to Facilitate Access by VIPs to Published Works", issued on Saturday,

"An unprecedented initiative to facilitate access to published works by the visually impaired and the print disabled was ... in New Delhi, India at the 5th meeting of WIPO’s Stakeholders’ Platform, which was set up in January 2009 to explore the specific needs, and concerns, of both copyright owners and reading impaired persons and brings together representatives of the visually impaired persons (VIPs) community as well as publishers. The Platform approved the launch on November 1, 2010 of TIGAR - the trusted intermediary global accessible resources project – which will enable publishers to make their titles easily available to trusted intermediaries. These intermediaries will create accessible formats and share them amongst each other and with specialized libraries.

It is estimated that only 5% of the world’s one million print titles that are published every year are accessible to the some 340 million around the world who are blind, visually impaired or who live with other print disabilities. Specialized organizations globally, such as libraries for the blind, have taken on the task of adapting these books into Daisy, Braille audio or special digital formats at great expense. The TIGAR project is the result of close collaboration between WIPO and organizations representing authors, publishers and blind and low vision persons, including the World Blind Union (WBU) and the International Publishers Association (IPA), and promises to provide access to a wider range of accessible books. WIPO will provide the technical support for this project".

TIGAR doesn't seem to have its own website yet (presumably we have to wait till next week's launch), but WIPO's Vision IP portal, which invites the taking of initiatives by the copyright community, is here.

Spotlight on a 9% Yield Stock

Some income investors are so jittery, that they don't want to risk their money in stocks, are almost as concerned about corporate bonds, and even want to avoid state and local municipal bonds. There isn't much left, except bank CD's and United States Government backed bonds. Thirty year Treasury bonds yield less than 4%, and you are lucky to get 1.5% on a CD.

However, there is one type of income investment that is gaining favor with income investors, and that is the government guaranteed mortgage real estate investment trusts. These REITs purchase residential mortgage pass-through securities which are guaranteed by government-sponsored entities, and use leverage to increase the yield. An example is Capstead Mortgage Corp. (CMO), which generates a yield of 9.4%.

Capstone is a Dallas, Texas based REIT that has been around since 1985, and has paid quarterly dividends since 1987. The company invests in adjustable-rate mortgage securities issued and guaranteed by government-sponsored entities, either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, or by Ginnie Mae, an agency of the federal government. Technically, with the explicit and implicit guarantees of the U. S. Government, the securities in the portfolio have an implied AAA credit rating. Although after what happened to the rating agencies and many of the companies and securities that they rated as triple A, I'm not sure that AAA means as much.

However, that is probably the biggest risk of this type of investment. Will the government entities, and behind them, the US Government, continue to guarantee the timely payment of principal and interest payments on these mortgages (with an emphasis on the word 'timely')? Assuming the government does come through, then a major risk of this type of investment is eliminated.

What about the risk of rising interest rates? Remember, when interest rates rise, bonds drop in value. Hopefully, the fact that Capstead invests in adjustable rate mortgages, as opposed to fixed rate mortgages, will help to alleviate that risk. But there is always the risk of a sharp increase in rates causing the REIT to drop somewhat.

Capstead has a current price to earnings ratio of 9 and trades at 7.5 times forward earnings. Although heavily in debt to increase the payout, the company does have $3.82 in cash per share. The price per share is about 7% below the book value of 11.87. The third quarter 2010 earnings conference call will be held October 28, 2010 at 9:00 AM Eastern time.

For more high yield REITs, check out the free list at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, which can be downloaded, sorted, and added to.

Disclosure: Author does not own the above.

By Stockerblog.com

What Sector has Significantly Outperformed the S&P 500 Last 6 Months

There is one investment sector that has significantly outperformed the S&P 500 during the last six months, and for that matter, outperformed over the last five years. You may be surprised to hear that this sector has previously been considered an income investment, not a growth investment. If you haven't guessed it by now, the sector I am referring to is utilities. That's right, the sector that includes such companies as American Electric Power (AEP), Dominion Resources (D), Edison International (EIX), and Southern Company (SO), all components of the Dow Jones Utility Index.

Over the last six months, the Utility Index was up about 5.2%, whereas the S&P 500 was down by 2.4%, a 7.6 percentage point difference. And if you compare the two indexes over a five year period, the utilities outperformed the S&P by four percentage points. The best feature about utility stocks is the high yield that many generate. For example, according to the recently updated list of high yield electric utility stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, there are over 30 that pay a dividend in excess of 4%.

As an example, Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED), the utility that serves New York City and Westchester County, yields 4.8% and sports a forward PE ratio of 14. Total dividend payouts of $672.6 million are very well covered by the company's operating cash flow of $1.82 billion.

Another high yielder on the list is Ameren Corporation (AEE), which serves Illinois and Missouri. The stock pays a 5.3% yield and trades at 12 times forward earnings. Total dividend payouts of $368.4 million are extremely well covered by the company's operating cash flow of $1.88 billion.

To see the rest of the high yield electric utilities, you can get a free list, which can be downloaded, changed, and updated, at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author didn't own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Increasing Bandwidth By Pair Bonding

If you have a bandwidth service, say a T1 line, and are starting to run out of bandwidth, then what is your next logical move? You could bring in a higher level service such as DS3, but that could prove tricky. Your T1 line is delivered over twisted pair copper. DS3 is generally brought in using fiber optic cable. Also, there is a tremendous jump in bandwidth and expense from a T1 line at 1.5 Mbps to a DS3 connection at 45 Mbps. Are there other options?

Perhaps the easiest move up is to simply add another T1 line if all you need is incrementally larger bandwidth. If you get both your lines from one carrier, they can do what is called “pair bonding” to make the two lines act like they are one larger line. For instance, two bonded T1 lines give you 3 Mbps. That goes to 4.5 Mbps with 3 lines and 6 Mbps with 4 lines. A practical limit to bonding for T1 is somewhere around 10 to 12 Mbps.

There is also another form of pair bonding you should be aware of. Instead of bonding T1 lines with their DS1 signals, dry copper pair can be leased with no signals of any type. They’re just plain copper wires running from a central office to a business location. Using multiple copper pair with special terminal equipment installed at each end, Ethernet over Copper or EoC can be provided by competitive carriers.

Ethernet over Copper uses a completely different form of modulation to transport the digital signals from provider to customer. Advanced techniques such as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) may be employed to reduce interference between signals on pairs bundled in the same cable. This allows more bandwidth to be transmitted using fewer wires than would otherwise be required.

The result is that Ethernet over Copper can transport higher bandwidth services using pair bonding. You can typically get 3 Mbps to 10 Mbps from EoC services. In some cases, that can be increased to as much as 50 Mbps. The higher the bandwidth, the closer you have to be located to the telco office. That’s because the techniques used to increase bandwidth are affected by distance. The signal fades as you get farther away from the source.

T1 lines don’t have this distance restriction, as the technology was designed to incorporate regenerators every mile or so to boost the signal. If you are located too far from the carrier’s point of presence to get Ethernet over Copper, you may qualify for Ethernet over DS1. That’s a technique that uses the T1 line protocol to transport Ethernet. You are essentially getting an Ethernet signal delivered using one or more T1 lines. In this case T1 pair bonding can be used to increase bandwidth.

Will some form of pair bonding get you the business bandwidth you need at a reasonable price? Find out what business bandwidth services are available for your location now.

An Outrageous True Story: Why People Don't Trust Banks

Last week, my mother went into a branch of a major banking institution, the same branch she had been going to for many years. She wanted to get something out of her safety deposit box, so she filled out the form, showed the clerk her key, and waited while the clerk went in the back. (My mother usually goes into her safebox about once a month.)

After waiting for ten minutes, my mother finally asked one of the tellers what was taking so long. The teller went to check and came back with the clerk who told my mother that they had no record of her having a safe deposit box there. My mother told her that was ridiculous, showed the woman her key and driver's license, and said that she had been going into her box regularly for years. Then the clerk asked her if she was in the right branch, and she replied that of course she was in the right branch, she never used any other branches.

Finally the branch manager came over, and asked what the problem was. When my mother told him, he went in the back. After a very long wait, he came out and said that he couldn't find any record of her having a safebox. My mother said that she had to get into her box. The manager said "I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do."

Apparently, there has been a recent turnover of employees at the branch. One of the tellers who did know my mother said that she saw that the safebox signature cards were moved from a drawer to a metal box, and maybe her signature card got lost in the transfer.

Anyway, my mother finally left, completely stunned, stressed, and devastated, without being able to get access to her safety deposit box. My questions to you, dear readers, is:

1. What would you do if this happened to you?

2. What would you do if this happened to your mother who lives 500 miles away, and asks you what she should do?

Book review: more arrows than Agincourt

A handsome new fourth edition of Intellectual Property and Media Law Companion, authored by Alasdair Bleakley (Addleshaw Goddard LLP), Edward Baden-Powell (Michael Simkins LLP) and Jeffrey Eneberi (Just-Eat), was published earlier this year. As the publishers state, this is the only title in the UK market that combines intellectual property and media law in a single book. While this is true, it may be fairer to categorise it as first and foremost a media law text, but with a useful quantity of some of the main and/or more media-relevant bits of IP to provide some helpful reinforcement.  According to the web-blurb:

"Lawyers, media and technology professionals, and students of the law, alike, will benefit from the clear layout and style of this book – making it a ‘must have’ for your bookshelf. This book should be your first point of reference when advising your clients or colleagues, or for enabling you to excel in your particular field of media or technology.

With case and legislation citations included throughout, this is a user-friendly starting-point for researching primary sources".

This book's strength does not lie in its extent of coverage of the law, which in around 550 pages including lists and the index was always going to be selective.  It lies in the book's sheer accessibility and confident guidance to the reader.  If you've got a library shelf full of authoritative texts spanning the entirety of IP and media law, this is not the book that will provide that penetrating insight on which you base your arguments to the Supreme Court.  It is however a very handy device for any lawyer who is working under the time pressure imposed on him by any commercial client who lives with deadlines and who, when he asks his lawyer a question, expects the answer by return (and at not much less speed than Roger Federer might be expected to return a serve).   With excellent diagrams and lists, more arrows than Agincourt and more bullets than the British Army will be able to muster after the spending cuts, this book rushes along at a breathless pace which suggests that it might be a good idea to get into training before reading it.

The best bits of this book are the chapters at the end, which are problem-based or industry-specific.  Content clearance, marketing, the music industry, TV and film --these give the authors a chance to demonstrate not only what the law is (and frankly there's not a lot of law on things like clearance of rights) but on what the problems are and how to tackle them head-on.  These are the zones in which Experience is King and the Law is a mere handmaiden. This reviewer bets that the bits at the back are the bits that get the heaviest usage too.

Bibliographical data: publisher, Bloomsbury Professional. ISBN 978 1 84766 042 8. Paperback, xxxvi + 521 pages. £35. Book's web page here.

Book Review: Super Sectors

The book Super Sectors: How to Outsmart the Market Using Sector Rotation and ETFs (Wiley Trading) by John Nyaradi clearly shows investors how to use exchange traded funds to take advantage of industries and sectors that are rising. He doesn't believe in buy and hold, and he also doesn't believe in dollar-cost-averaging. He does believe in actively managing money using ETFs.

The book has a couple chapters on using point-and-figure charts, a chapter on choosing sectors, and one on when to sell your shares. One chapter that shouldn't be skipped is called The Psychology of Trading. Near the end of the book, Nyaradi covers in detail what he considers the five 'Super Sectors'. (I won't ruin the ending by telling you what those five are.) The book also includes some interviews with top traders and a compilation of ETF resources.

If you have considered investing by sectors using ETFs, then Super Sectors is the book for you.

By Stockerblog.com

Stocks Going Ex Dividend the Second Week of November

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends'. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets. In flat or choppy markets, your have to be extremely careful.

In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable Excel list of the stocks going ex dividend during the next week or two. The list contains many dividend paying companies, all with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date and the yield.

ITT Corporation (ITT) market cap: $8.8B ex div date: 11/9/2010 yield: 2.1%

Linear Technology Corporation (LLTC) market cap: $6.8B ex div date: 11/9/2010 yield: 3.0%

Walgreen Company (WAG) market cap: $33.6B ex div date: 11/10/2010 yield: 2.0%

FORTIS INC (FRTSF) market cap: $5.6B ex div date: 11/10/2010 yield: 3.6%

Southwest Gas Corporation (SWX) market cap: $1.6B ex div date: 11/10/2010 yield: 2.9%

The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found at wsnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn't show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out the high yield utility stocks and the Monthly Dividend Stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WSNN.com.

Dividend definitions:

Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.

Record date: the day when you must be on the company's books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Don't forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.

Disclosure: Author does not own any of the above at the time article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

It's All (Hopefully) Coming Back To Me Now

Back in September, blogger Hugo reported that Eminem sued his record label, Aftermath, over unpaid royalties in connection with sales of his music through iTunes.

Now comes news that the family of late country singer Keith Whitley is doing the same. The suit filed by Whitley's widow and children against Sony Music Entertainment alleges that SME failed to pay certain bonus royalties when Whitley's album reached various sales thresholds. The suit also claims that SME failed to pay the increased royalty rate for downloads that allegedly should have been considered licensed transactions.

The Eminem suit was heard within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that downloads were indeed licensed transactions subject to the higher royalty under Eminem's recording contract. The Whitley family's suit, on the other hand, was filed in New York State Supreme Court. If the case is transferred from state to federal court, it would fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Eminem case would be persuasive but not precedential (meaning that the court may choose to consider the Ninth Circuit holding, but is not required to do so).

If the Whitleys succeed in their claims for back-royalties from SME, two jurisdictions will have weighed in on the side of the artists. It is likely that other similar suits will not be far behind.

Penny Stocks that Trade on the New York Stock Exchange

About three years ago to the day, I wrote an article about the penny stocks that trade on the New York Stock Exchange. At that time, there were only four. Now there are eight stocks trading for less than a dollar a share on the NYSE. The stocks are as follows, along with the current price.

W Holding Company, Inc. (WHI) $0.18
Raser Technologies, Inc. (RZ) $0.25
First BanCorp. (FBP) $0.29
Cardium Therapeutics Inc. (CXM) $0.51
Gushan Environmental Energy Limited (GU) $0.88
BankAtlantic Bancorp, Inc. (BBX) $0.88
Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. (JTX) $0.94
Rite Aid Corporation (RAD) $0.95


Disclosure: Author does not own any of the above.

By Stockerblog.com

Pink Android Intercept Means Business

Remember the movie “Pretty in Pink” with Molly Ringwald? Gotta love the '80's. Anyway, the same title might be applied to the Samsung Intercept in its stunning satin pink case. This is not just a pretty phone, its a pretty hot business machine.

The pink Android's beauty starts with a large three inch touch screen display that gives you access to all your apps. There are thousands available through the Android Market. But unlike lesser touchscreen phones, this one also sports a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard for high speed email, instant messaging and texting to family, friends and colleagues. The email client is equipped to handle Microsoft Direct Push as well as mobile email like Gmail and Yahoo! You’ll be able to view document attachments in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint to take care of business.

Yes, you have full access to the Internet. The browser is a full HTML Web browser. You’ll be connected at 3G speeds wherever possible through the Sprint 3G network. If you want more download speed or just want to save your 3G Mbytes for on-the-go usage, you also have WiFi capability.

The Intercept is a multimedia phone that lest you send and receive picture and video messages. You’ll always have a high resolution digital camera with you. The included camera offers 3.2 Megapixel pictures good enough to print as well as send. It also works as a camcorder for capturing video at a moment’s notice. Catch the latest news, sports, weather and entertainment with Sprint TV. You can even control your home’s FrontPoint security system.

Will you be sociable using this phone? Yes, you will. Access to Facebook is built-in, as well as access to Twitter. With the real buttons on that full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, you’ll find it effortless to keep up with your social networks. Of course, you can always use the voice network, a.k.a. telephone, when you want to communicate old school.

Speaking of telephone, the Intercept allows you to “intercept” your voicemail using Visual Voicemail. Listen to your voicemail messages in any order and easily manage your inbox without actually calling in.

Another nice feature is integrated GPS that provides support for location-based services like Google Maps. There’s no excuse now for getting “lost” at lunch time and coming back late. Oh, well.

Have you been looking for a high performance smartphone that also has a flair for fashion? This may be the Android phone that you’ve been wanting. If so, you can get it FREE for a limited time when you order online with new service. Learn more and get your Samsung Intercept Satin Pink for Sprint right now.

Of course, there are many other free and low cost smartphone and cell phone models available to you. Visit Cell Phone Plans Finder and check out today’s cell phone specials.

Sex Sells for $13 Million

The domain name, sex.com, just sold for $13 million dollars. It was sold because the former owner, Escom LLC, went bankrupt. It was offered through sedo.com, a large broker of Internet domain names, and instead of being sold at auction, it was sold as a negotiated sale to a company called Clover Holdings, based in the Caribbean island of St Vincent. The domain name reportedly sold for $14 million a few years ago. Gary Kremen, the founder of Match.com, was the one who originally registered the domain back in the 1990's.

This domain name has had a notorious history, including being hijacked through identity theft, and Kremen spent a long time in court getting it back. You can read all about the history of the domain in the book Sex.com: One Domain, Two Men, Twelve Years and the Brutal Battle for the Jewel in the Internet's Crown (Volume 2) and the book The Sex.Com Chronicles: A White-Hat Lawyer's Journey to the Dark Side of the Internet.

Don't forget to check out the Top Domain Names are Owned by Publicly Traded Companies.

The Advantages of Tax Free CEFs Yielding Over 5%

With so much uncertainty in the stock market, and with the possibility of tax increases on the horizon, investors have been allocating funds into tax free bonds (municipal bonds), directly and through tax free income closed end funds. Tax free closed end funds or CEFs have several advantages over investing in municipal bonds directly.

Many of these CEFs have yields of 5% or more, such as the Blackrock Apex Municipal Fund Inc. (APX), which sells at a discount to net asset value, uses almost no leverage, and yields 5.7%. The Nuveen New York Dividend Advantage Municipal Fund 2 (NXK) has a yield of 5.8%, is currently trading at a discount to NAV, and has about 26.5% leverage, much lower than the average leverage of 34.7% for all the CEFs. The Nuveen Investment Quality Municipal Fund Inc. (NQM) yields 6.6%, utilizes about 29% leverage, and trades at a slight discount. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com just updated its list of tax free income closed end funds, which describes almost 200 ETFs,, including yields, discounts/premiums, leverage, management fees, date founded, and other information.

High income taxpayers love municipal bonds, as they provide income that is tax free from Federal income taxes, and if the bond is issued from the state in which the taxpayer resides or from one of the territories of the US such as Puerto Rico, then the income is also exempt from state taxes. Munis are generally issued by states, counties, cities, and other governmental entities such as school districts, sewer districts, bridges, and water and power departments. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of munis and muni CEFs.

Municipal Bonds

Advantages:

1. You can pick and choose what governmental agency you want to loan money to. Maybe you want to stick with the bonds from the cities and counties near you that you are familiar with.

2. Bonds have a maturity date. This means that no matter how high interest rates go, and no matter how low the bonds drop in value, at maturity, the bonds are paid off at par.

3. What your bond is worth is what your bond is worth; in other words, the trading price of CEFs may be far higher or lower than the net asset value of the fund.

Disadvantages:

1. Higher minimum investment. Although munis are issued in $5,000 denominations, a round lot is generally considered by many firms to be $100,000.

2. Less diversification. Because of the higher minimum, investors can't own as many diverse bonds as they could with a CEF.

3. Interest payments only twice a year.

4. No professional management or monitoring.

5. Illiquidity. Munis are not traded on an exchange, and estimated prices given on brokerage statements can be way off from what brokers will actually offer you if you want to sell. This actually happened to me; I received an offer of five points less than what the statement showed a couple days before, with no change in interest rates over those couple days.

Municipal Bond Closed End Funds

Advantages:

1. No minimum investment. You could technically buy one share.

2. Monthly income.

3. With the monthly income, you receive you capital back faster, and you can do quicker compounding of your income.

4. Very liquid; traded on major exchanges.

5. Narrow bid and asked spreads compared to municipal bonds.

6. Can sell off small portions if funds are needed. In other words, if you had $10,000 invested and needed to cash in $1,000 worth, you could do it with a CEF but not with municipal bonds.

Disadvantages:

1. You pay a management fee and other administrative fees.

2. Some CEFs use leverage. You should beware that this increases the risks to the investor.

3. Some CEFs may be trading at a premium to net asset value. You want to look for those trading at a discount.

4. No maturity date (other than a few target funds). If rates go up and continue to rise during your lifetime, you may never get your principal back.

As you can see, there are benefits to both municipal bonds and municipal bond closed end funds. Just make sure that you are familiar with the risks and costs of each.

Disclosure: Author does not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Spanish private copying levy case: some early responses

It all adds up ...

The IPKat has already posted on today's ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C‑467/08, Padawan SL v Sociedad General de Autores y Editores de España (SGAE), which ruled that indiscriminate copyright levies fall foul of harmonised European Union rules under the InfoSoc Directice (2001/29).  This post draws the attention to some of the early comments on it.

Arstechnica's "Europe smacks "indiscriminate" copyright levies on blank CDs, DVDs" (by Nate Anderson) explains the problem as follows:

"Spain allows its citizens to make private copies of copyrighted works—but it compensates creators for the economic harm of this practice by laying down a levy on digital media and devices. If you purchase blank CDs or DVDs, or if you buy DVD burners or possibly even an MP3 player, you have to pay up. But what if "you" aren't a person at all? Imagine a nonprofit that needs to back up its donor records, or a business that wants to burn its own promotional CDs, or a government agency that buys some computers with DVD burners built in. They won't be churning out Bob Dylan CD mixes, so how can it be fair to make them pay the levy?"

The author adds:

"This raises an obvious question: how do you know if blank media or burners will be used for private copying or not? The court laid down a distinction. When sold to "natural persons for private purposes," the country can assume that private copying will take place and impose the levy. But when sold to businesses or other non-natural persons, they can't; no levy is allowed.

The decision would appear to have little impact on consumers, though it does mean that business who sell such digital media and devices won't have to pay levies on every item they sell. The distinction the court makes here seems a sane one, though true fairness would obviously mean that the levy is only paid on each piece of media or device actually used for private copying".

English-language Basque website EITB's feature, "Europe rules Spanish digital copyright tax 'illegal'", carries only a short summary but reminds readers it's still for the Provincial Court of Barcelona to determine whether the Spanish levy (or 'canon') is "imposed indiscriminately".

From Hollywood Reporter comes "Spain's Tax for Purchasing Equipment to Record Digital Content Ruled Illegal" by Pamela Rolfe. This piece goes into detail as to the actual sums levied and lists the recording devices which the levy covered: these include mobile phones as well as more conventional hardware.  Rolfe observes that last year the levy pulled in a handsome 100 millions euros for collecting societies, of which SGAE received 26%,

Going for Five? Golan Tries Again

Several months ago, The 1709 Blog reported on the 10th Circuit decision of Golan v. Holder, also known as Golan IV.  Yesterday, the Stanford Center for Internet and Society announced that is has filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the Golan side.

The entire petition is available from CIS here (pdf).  For those that have been following the Golan saga, the petition contains little surprises.  As in the case’s previous incarnations, Golan’s group (the Petitioners) is arguing that the US Copyright Act provision reinstating copyright for foreign works that had fallen out of copyright due to non-compliance with previously required formalities violates the US Constitution.  The Constitution sections at issue are the First Amendment – guaranteeing freedom of speech and expression, and the Progress Clause – introducing intellectual property rights with a ‘limited time’ time-limit.

When Golan III was argued, the US government claimed that the provision of the Copyright Act at issue was necessary in order for the US to comply with its duties under the Berne Convention.  The 10th Circuit decided Berne was not an issue because it found there to be this other interest the government had to protect, the interest of US authors abroad.  The petition argues that the Golan III 10th Circuit panel decision side-stepped the real issues (as mentioned above) and rested its decision on this made-up theory of protecting US author’s rights abroad.  It states that in this way and others the Golan III decision goes against prior Supreme Court decisions.  Interestingly, in one of the places where this argument is made, most of the cases cited are actually patent cases and not copyright cases.  That difference may be something the US government side can latch onto when trying to distinguish the cases and show that the rules do not apply to here.

For those who are not familiar with US procedures.  This filing does not mean that the Supreme Court will hear the case.  It only means that the Golan group thinks the Supreme Court should hear the case.  The Court will decide on its own whether there will be a Golan V.

Photo Credit: five CC-BY woodley wonderworks available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/3196112134/

Why Ethernet Broadband For Business?

When we think of broadband, what generally comes to mind is DSL, Cable Internet or cellular wireless services. But these are light duty or consumer-grade bandwidth services. Why might you become frustrated with such broadband services in business and is there an attractive alternative?

First, let’s take cellular wireless. It goes by the name 3G and, increasingly, 4G. The problem with both 3G and 4G coming from cell towers is that there is a very limited amount of bandwidth available and it has to be fairly apportioned to all the users who want it.

Smartphones gobble up bandwidth at an eye-popping rate. Get enough smartphones or netbook aircards in a particular area and the whole network can be brought to its knees. That’s why most carriers now have monthly bandwidth limits with steep overage penalties. Satellite and some 4G carriers take a different approach. Instead of charging for overage, they throttle down bandwidth for heavy users. If you use too much in a given period, they slow down your access to give others a chance.

While out and about, cellular broadband may be your best bet simply because service is so readily available compared to everything else. If the cells are too congested, you can find a WiFi hotspot and likely get better throughput there.

If you want or need wireless broadband service for an office with multiple users, consider a fixed wireless option designed for business. They’re mostly available in large metropolitan areas. If you can get this service, you’ll be hooked up quickly and have generous amounts of bandwidth at your disposal. An outdoor antenna is installed on your building to a strong signal for reliable service.

DSL and Cable broadband were designed for consumers. The carriers bend over backwards to keep the price low so that most consumers can afford the service. But they achieve that by having everyone share the available bandwidth. Your service might offer “up to 10 Mbps” of download bandwidth. Whether or not you get anywhere near that depends on what your neighbors are doing online. When everybody starts heavily accessing the Internet, the line speed for each user slows and sometimes slows to a crawl.

Businesses that need reliable, dependable and fast Internet service often find themselves frustrated at keeping up productivity on services that cater to people downloading music and videos at home. The classic solution is the T1 line. T1 lines are dedicated, in the sense that you have full use of the available 1.5 Mbps bandwidth. T1 is highly reliable, gets fast repair service if anything ever does go wrong and is “unlimited” in that you can run it full speed 24/7 all month. If you need more bandwidth, you can “bond” more T1 lines up to about 10 Mbps both upload and download.

The one thing that makes businesses sometimes hesitate at installing one or more T1 lines is that the cost is several times what you pay for those consumer services. Even though the cost is well worth it when you consider the lost business or productivity that results from flaky Internet service, there is now an even better option for business use. That service is Ethernet broadband.

Ethernet broadband is a high speed dedicated wireline service that can be provided to your business location on either copper wiring or fiber optic cable, depending on bandwidth. Popular speed options are 3 and 10 Mbps for smaller businesses, 100 to 1000 Mbps for medium size operations, and 1 Gbps and up for large corporations. Your line speed is scalable, so you can generally have it increased up to the full capacity of the installed port with only a phone call to your provider.

Best of all, Ethernet is often the best value for your broadband dollar. A 3 Mbps Ethernet connection is often about the same price as a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. A 10 Mbps Ethernet service is easily affordable by most businesses.

Would you be interested in switching to highly reliable, high speed Ethernet services if the price were attractive? Why not check out Ethernet broadband service prices right now? See how much bandwidth you can get for your budget.

Viagra Treatment for Muscular Dystrophy

Viagra is the most popular drug for erectile dysfunction. It has also been used to treat such afflictions as decreased circulation and pulmonary hypertension. Researchers have now discovered that Viagra may be useful in treating young males who suffer from cardiac degeneration due to Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The study is being done at the University of Washington, Seattle with the expectation that is will help pre-teen and teenage boys with DMD lead longer lives.

Viagra, which has the chemical name sildenafil citrate, was the first drug approved to treat ED in the United States. It is manufactured by Pfizer Inc. (PFE), which manufactures and markets numerous other drugs including Lipitor for elevated cholesterol, Norvasc for hypertension, Zoloft for central nervous system disorders, Celebrex for osteoarthritis, Zyrtec for allergies, and many others. This is one of the higher paying major pharmaceutical stocks with a yield of 4%. The P/E is 17 and the PEG is 3.21. Latest year over year quarterly earnings from continuing operations were up over 9.4%.

Another player in the ED market is the famous aspirin maker Bayer AG (BAYRY.PK), which produces vardenafil, or more commonly known as Levitra. This German stock, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, has a P/E of 28 and a PEG of 2.62. It pays an annual dividend of 2.5%.

GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) is also a co-marketer of Levitra. In Italy, GSK markets the drug as it as Vivanza. The company has a PE of 17, and a PEG ratio of 3.88. Another member of the high yield big pharma club, the stock yields 4.4%.

Merck (MRK), after taking over Schering-Plough, became another co-marketer of Levitra, including STAXYN™ [vardenafil HCI], an orally disintegrating tablet version of Levitra. The company has a PE of 9, and a PEG ratio of 1.85. The stock yields 4.1%.

Last but not least is Cialis, with the chemical name tadalafil, that is manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company (LLY). Cialis is sometimes referred to as the weekend pill because its potency lasts for 36 hours. Lilly has a P/E of 9. The company is another high dividend payer with a yield of 5.1%.

If you like high yield big pharmaceutical stocks, you should check out the free list at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Author owns PFE and BAYRY.PK.

By Stockerblog.com