Credit Suisse analyst Christopher Larsen Thursday morning trimmed his estimates on both AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ), noting several areas where results are being affected by a slower economy.

Larsen writes that “the weakening macro economic environment and more aggressive wireless competition has had a significant impact on the telcos in Q2.” He believes wireless and technology substitution was greater than anticipated. He also thinks DSL growth was slower than expected.

What does this mean? It means getting an unlocked iPhone will be incrementally harder and considerably more expensive. Even if you pay for the phone and cancel your contract for a $175 fee, the phone will cost around $500, all told. While this is good news for Apple and AT&T - the unlocking imperative just got quite expensive - it’s bad news for folks who haven’t yet gotten iPhones in their respective countries and/or T-Mobile fans who don’t want to switch to AT&T.

With 18% EBITDA growth and an increased dividend from C$0.72 to C$0.80, analysts now cast an eye to Shaw's moves in developing a wireless service with the expected purchase of spectrum following the conclusion of Industry Canada's auction.

Employment figures are the really important news and this will be published on Thursday, with an expected 50,000 more jobs lost in June, taking unemployment to 5.4%. Tuesday saw the publication of the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for June, and due to be published Tuesday is the Institute of Supply Management Survey, which tracks the manufacturing sector in the US.

Just imagine the new uses for “iReady”.

Ferragu sees network equipment sales growing 7% a year through 2012, up from 4% on average from 2002 to 2007 “as a result of the explosion of data traffic,” which he sees grow 75% a year, and continued growth in voice traffic of about 20% a year. “We also expect profitability to improve as demand picks up and the competitive landscape stabilizes,” he writes. Ferragu says there will be four drivers for equipment sector:

As vice president of corporate marketing and investor relations for Sonus Networks, Jocelyn Philbrook, who has been with the Company since September 2001, was in charge of driving the development and implementation of the Company’s corporate marketing and communications strategies on a worldwide basis.

This time around, the new iPhone 3G launching on July 11 will spur at least one other derivative play, and that's the bandwidth play. For the first time on a handheld, the iPhone 3G combines the standout handheld browser with an HSPA radio fast enough to yield a decent web browsing experience -- including mobile search – when you're not on WiFi.

Q1 2008 Earnings Call

This is a company we’ve been tracking since 2006 when call volume really began to ramp and the funding started rolling in. In October 2006 I interviewed then-CEO George Garrick and investor Josh Kopelman about the business model. At the time they weren’t profitable on a per call basis, but were confident that their direct response ads, which prompt customers be connected to a similar company that they requested along with a discount offer, would take off.

To me, the important take away of the announcement was AT&T's appointment of Cathy Martine as the executive vice president of Content Distribution. AT&T has had technical folks working on its CDN offering since last year, but to date, did not have anyone leading the business. It's really hard to start any new product offering in the market if no one is responsible for it on the business side, which AT&T now has. A 25+ year veteran at AT&T, Cathy formerly launched and ran the company's VoIP product line but will now focus solely on the CDN business. Late yesterday, I had a chance to speak to Cathy and some of her technical team to get my questions answered.

“Ratcheting” is for people who didn’t play an organized sport in high school, or who’ve never been pheasant hunting. Getting to no rarely leads to a closed financing, and we'd rather close a deal, if given the chance.

David Lambert at Canaccord Adams thinks the chances of the BCE buyout being repriced are low. This is in part because the C$42.75 per share offer was determined by auction.

T-Mobile USA expects to deliver an Android-powered phone in the fourth period. But that launch is taking up so much of Google’s attention and resources that Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), which had hoped to launch an Android phone this year, won’t be able to, a person familiar with the matter said.

Evertz, an television equipment provider, said sales increased 7% year-over-year in the quarter to C$62.9-million, and net earnings per share increased from C$0.25 a year ago to C$0.28.  For the year, Evertz revenues jumped 36% to C$272.5-million and EPS grew 40% to C1.17.

The higher subsidy rate for the iPhone, he says, “reflects AT&T’s faith in the iPhone’s ability to attract new subs and increase ARPU.” And he also says it has positive implications for Apple, since it effectively results in a playing field that is tilted in their favor. “Rivals must scramble to hit a lower, less profitable price point,” he writes.

1. Think of Michael Sabia. Soon after the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan [OTPPB] deal was signed, he announced that he’d be retiring upon the change of control. With something like a C$28 million payout on a C$42.75 takeout price, who could blame him? Who, other than OTPPB chiefs, that is?

Needless, to say this national rollout–the 50 Mbps down 20 Mbps up (50/20) service was tested in select areas–got my attention. I’m a Verizon FiOS customer and have no complaints about the speed or uptime. The big question: What will I do with 50 Mbps? Once the “whoo hoo this thing is fast” goes away, I have to get down to the details. My rough calculus: