Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White this morning writes that China Telecom (CHA) on Friday posted a survey online to gauge interest in Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone.

With China Unicom (CHU) the only carrier of China’s top three carrying the iPhone (the third carrier is China Mobile (CHL), the biggest), White thinks the poll suggests enhances his view that China Telecom could offer the iPhone, perhaps as soon as this summer.

CHL overtook Verizon Communications (VZ) lately as the world’s largest carrier using CDMA technology, with 100 million subscribers.

As of this morning, 8,290 people participated, with 73% indicating they are interested in buying a CDMA iPhone 4 and 2% indicating no interest, while the remainder were undecided. For the price range, 69% indicated that RMB3,500 to RMB4,000 (US$535- $612) is affordable, while 24% indicated RMB4,500 to RMB5,000 (US$688-$765), 5% indicated RMB5,500 to RMB6,000 (US$841-$917) and the remainder indicated RMB6,500 to RMB7,000 (US$994-$1,070).

White reiterated a Buy recommendation on Apple shares and a $550 price target.

Previously: Apple: Ticonderoga Sees More Inklings Of China Telecom iPhone, Feb. 24th, 2011.

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BTIG Research analyst Walter Piecyk this afternoon writes that his calls to 150 Verizon Communications (VZ) stores in 22 cities in the U.S. this week reveal that the HTC “Thunderbolt” phone, based on Google‘s (GOOG) “Android” software, is at least keeping pace with sales of Apple‘s (AAPL) iPhone.

Based on anecdotal reports, not actual sales figures, in 61% of cases, store reps told Piecyk that sames were about the same; in 11% of cases, the iPhone sales were ahead; in 28% of cases, the Thunderbolt was ahead.

“Clearly the strong sales of the ThunderBolt could be a result of the hype following the recent launch of the ThunderBolt,” two weeks ago, he writes. “But the qualitative feedback we received from sales people was an expectation that the ThunderBolt would keep pace with the iPhone.”

He adds, “Salespeople indicated that customers are very interested in the fast speeds offered by the ThunderBolt’s 4G capability and in some cases they indicated that they had received returns based on the battery life of the ThunderBolt.”

Not that the iPhone is having a tough time: sales are still “strong,” reps told him, and he himself believes they have been “steady” since the introduction of the iPhone 4 at Verizon on February 10th.

As for the stock, Apple’s fate is determined less by iPhone sales than by sales of iPad this quarter, he writes. Piecyk had raised his Apple target back on March 16th to $450 based on what he projected would be higher-than-expected iPad sales.

Apple shares today are down 56 cents at $348.07.

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Sprint-Nextel (S) this afternoon dropped the other shoe, formally stating its opposition to AT&T’s (T) announcement a week ago it intends to purchase Deutsche Telekom’s (DT) T-Mobile USA for $39 billion. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse had alluded to the company’s opposition during the CTIA-Wireless event last week in Orland, Florida.

The AT&T bid “would reverse nearly three decades of actions by the U.S. government and the courts that modernized and opened U.S. communications markets to competition,” said Sprint.

“The wireless industry has sparked unprecedented levels of competition, innovation, job creation and investment for the American economy, all of which could be undone by this transaction.”

Debate still rages over whether this deal gets done or not. RBC Capital’s Jonathan Atkin writes today that, “Most legal/policy experts we have spoken with now believe the AT&T/T-Mobile deal will be approved as political factors outweigh consumer concerns,” although both AT&T and T-Mobile face “choppy” quarters, with the risk of heightened churn and problems gaining postpaid subscribers. As for Sprint, the AT&T’s bid will distract T-Mobile, Sprint’s “principal value competitor in postpaid,” which is a good thing. He has a Sector Perform rating on both AT&T and Sprint shares. He rates Verizon Communications (VZ) Outperform.

Jamie Townsend of Town Hall Research writes that, “We believe that Verizon will eventually decide to purchase Sprint and that Sprint will recognize that such a move will be in the best interests of its shareholders.” Verizon will want to push a regulatory review of AT&T’s effort. If Verizon doesn’t do so soon, however, a takeover of Sprint won’t happen “for at least two years,” he believes. Sprint will struggle with renewed subscriber losses, Townshend believes, and so despite the takeover prospects, he reiterated an “Avoid” recommendation on Sprint shares.

Sprint shares today are up 10 cents, or 2%, at $4.78.

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The CTIA Wireless 2011 show, one of the bigger annual industry confabs, winds down tomorrow in Orlando, Florida.

Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche this afternoon offers some observations from a meeting with Verizon Communications (VZ) investor relations rep John Doherty at the show.

Fritzsche surmises Verizon will be probably change its wireless pricing to a “tiered” approach this summer, or at least that’s what she expects. Fritzsche is expecting a “metered pricing approach,” from Verizon, without elaborating.

Fritzsche also reports Verizon is on track with its expansion of its 4G wireless network, using “Long Term Evolution” technology. Verizon is adding 8 million to 10 million POPs per month — the cellular term for how many people are within range of the company’s services in a given market. Verizon has 7,000 cell sites equipped for LTE and Fritzsche expects the company to “double its current LTE footprint by mid-2012, with a full buildout complete in 2013.”

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Shares of companies that own and operate cellular towers, including American Tower (AMT), Crown Castle (CCI), and SBA Communications (SBAC) continue to trade down today following AT&T’s (T) announcement it intends to purchase Deutsche Telekcom‘s (DT) T-Mobile USA for $39 billion, the implication being that all these companies will lose some business as AT&T consolidates the network footprint.

However, some more information has filtered out that is worth taking into consideration: SBA and CCI both offered statements this morning that describe in detail how their networks reflect the respective AT&T and T-Mobile assets.

• SBA says in an 8-K filing that as of today it has “separate leases for antenna space with AT&T and T-Mobile on the same tower at approximately 1,533 of the Company’s 9,260 total current owned tower sites,” and that, “The total annualized site leasing revenue generated by T-Mobile at these sites is approximately $40.1 million” while “the total annualized site leasing revenue generated by AT&T at these sites is approximately $53.6 million. The weighted average remaining current term of these leases is approximately 3 years.”
• CCI said in its press release that, “As of December 31, 2010, AT&T and T-Mobile represented 21% and 11%, respectively, of Crown Castle’s consolidated revenues. Further, there are approximately 4,000 Crown Castle towers on which both carriers currently reside. Crown Castle’s revenue from T-Mobile on these 4,000 towers represents approximately 6% of Crown Castle’s consolidated revenues. In addition, there is an average of approximately 12 years and 7 years of current term remaining on all lease agreements with AT&T and T-Mobile, respectively.”

In response to both announcements, Gray Powell of Wells Fargo this afternoon writes that the impact of the deal now seems not as bad as he had anticipated.

For SBAC, he had anticipated that 7.5% of revenue might be at risk over 5 years, resulting in “a 150 percentage point drag” on his projected 9% revenue growth rate. But now he thinks only 4.4% of revenue is at risk, for a 145 percentage point drag, assuming that AT&T decommissioned “at most a net $26.5 million in revenue from SBAC.”

For CCI, “AT&T could decommission all of T-Mobile’s overlapping sites which would impact revenue by 6% over 7 years,” he thinks, down from an original estimate of 6.4%. This might rob CCI of 83 percentage points of revenue growth, not as bad as the 130 points he had originally supposed.

Powell rates SBAC stock Outperform, writing that the valuation of 13.9 times projected 2012 free cash flow per share is “very attractive.” He rates CCI Market Perform but thinks “the sell off today is overdone.”

SBAC shares are down $3.60, or almost 9%, at $37.01. CCI shares are down $1.83, or almost 5%, at $37.33. American Tower shares are off $3.80, or 7.5%, at $46.82.

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In case you hadn’t heard, AT&T (T) on Sunday afternoon said that it would acquire Deutsche Telekom’s (DT) T-Mobile USA unit for $39 billion in cash and stock, vaulting the company past Verizon Communications (VZ) as the largest U.S. Wireless carrier and creating what AT&T said would be “straightforward synnergies.”

AT&T would have 130 million subscribers under the deal, versus 100 million for Verizon, out of a U.S. total of 293 million. 

The deal, consisting of $25 billion in cash and the rest in stock, will be paid with existing cash and new debt, AT&T said. The company said it has an 18-month commitment for a one-year unsecured bridge term facility underwritten by J.P. Morgan for $20 billion. AT&T isn’t taking on any debt from T-Mobile, it said. The dividend will be supported, it said. Deutsche Telekom will get 8.5% ownership of the new entity. The deal is expected to take a year to close.

The deal will add to AT&T’s profit in the third year after it closes, based on $3 billion a year in synnergies, AT&T said, and on a combined basis, the two companies would have had $80 billion in revenue last year, up from AT&T’s reported $58.5 billion. 

AT&T will hold a conference call at 8 am, Eastern time today to discuss the deal. You can listen in on (888) 517-2464 in the U.S., or (630) 827-6816 outside the U.S., using passcode 8442095. 

A couple things were obvious in the Street’s initial response: it comes as quite a surprise, as most people figure the hurdles for regulatory approval are quite high. And it puts Sprint-Nextel (S) now in a tricky spot, as rumors in recent weeks had suggested a deal with Deutsche or a T-Mobile might be a good fit to boost the company’s competitive position. That prospect is now gone. 

Jamie Townshend, Town Hall Investment Research:  The deal is positive for AT&T, but the more interesting question is what it does to the competition. Verizon may consider a similar move, with “Sprint, MetroPCS (PCS), and Leap Wireless (LEAP) the most likely candidates, though such deals would come with “a variety of issues” for Verizon that make them far from a certainty. And, “We believe that Sprint in particular is at risk as they have lost a potential merger partner and gained an even more formidable competitor,” while Clearwire’s (CLWR) “predicament has gotten worse, in our view. While some may assume that an acquisition of Sprint by Verizon would eventually include Clearwire, we believe that it is an unlikely scenario. In the meantime, T-Mobile can no longer be viewed as a potential wholesale customer of Clearwire and we continue to believe that Sprint is moving away from a longer term commitment to Clearwire and its WiMAX network.”

Greg Miller, Collins Stewart: Reiterates a Neutral rating on AT&T. “With the proposed merger that would result in AT&T to have 129 million wireless subscribers, or roughly 43% of US total, we expect the most obvious call by everyone will be that the deal is likely to face stiff FCC and maybe even DOJ opposition.” Less competition over the long term will be a net positive for Verizon shareholders, he writes. “Although the announcement clearly pushes Sprint and Clearwire closer together [...] we also note that it likely eliminates a likely wholesale customer or even purchaser of the 20Mhz of Clearwire spectrum that had actively been shopped. For LightSquared, it simply eliminates the single most likely anchor tenant for its yet-to-be built wireless network which could jeopardize its entire business model.” This is a definite negative for the companies that own towers, including American Tower (AMT), Crown Castle International (CCI), and SBA Communications (SBAC), as there will be a combined 40,000 tower sites that T investors will expect to be pared down. 

Jonathan Atkins, RBC Capital: The stiff regulatory challenge may be eased somewhat by the fact that the big telecom workers’ union, the Communications Workers of America, came out in favor of the deal Sunday. The value of 7.1 times projected Ebitda put on the deal makes Sprint look more attractive, though there seems little prospect Sprint will get any bid unless Verizon decides it wants to create regulatory headaches for AT&T by pushing matters and buying Sprint. “Deutsche Telekom, if the deal is approved, would benefit from a higher valuation than it currently receives for TMUSA and enhanced flexibility for shareholder remuneration,” writes Atkind, while “AT&T shares may face some pressure on regulatory approval.”

Clay Moran, The Benchmark Co.: Reiterates buy ratings on the three tower stocks, despite the obvious negatives of consolidations. It’s going to take a year for the deal to get done and the tower stocks are reasonably cheap, he writes. “Tower companies have yet to disclose the percentage of revenue at risk due to possible site decommissioning,” he observes, but anyway, it’s likely to take a long time. “Longer-term, fewer networks would be unfortunate for towers. But overall network usage is the primary driver of demand for tower space and this acquisition will not impact growing consumer demand for mobile communications.”

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Morgan Keegan’s Tavis McCourt this morning writes that his checks with 80 retail locations selling tablets and smartphones from Motorola Mobility (MMI) and Research in Motion (RIMM) in the last couple of weeks reveal that things seem to be going better for both companies than some recent speculation would suggest.

McCourt writes that the Moto “Xoom” tablet, about which speculation has run high that the device has flaws or has had trouble selling, is actually doing just fine: his checks show it consistently selling 2 units per day, on average, at most Verizon Communications (VZ) stores, which is enough to meet his estimate for 300,000 units in total for this quarter.

Motorola’s brand new smartphone, the “Atrix,” is selling 3 to 4 units a day at AT&T (T). That’s “a bit disappointing,” he writes, but the device quality is high, he believes and “MMI is starting from a very low base at AT&T.”

As for RIM, “There appears to have been no dramatic change in BlackBerry sell-through at AT&T or Verizon, although we suspect sell-through is down modestly with the recent competitive launches.

The Blackberry “Style” is a surprise hit at Sprint Nextel (S), he points out, perhaps the top seller there. He’s hearing steady demand for the BlackBerry among business customers and also hearing that sales reps are still recommending BlackBerries for customers who want to do a lot of messaging on their phones.

McCourt reiterated an Outperform rating on shares of Research in Motion and a Market Perform rating on shares of Motorola. He has an Outperform on Apple’s (AAPL) shares as well.

RIMM shares are down 40 cents, or 0.6%, at $62.20 in early trading. Moto shares are down 32 cents, or 1.3%, at $24.89.

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Jerry Rawls, chairman of optical device maker Finisar (FNSR) led a conference call with analysts this evening following a weak Q4 forecast and a 37% plunge in the company’s shares.

Rawls said that “The underlying drivers for bandwidth and our position as the industry leader continued to remain strong,” but that the company is seeing “some contrary factors at work” during the current quarter, causing revenue to dip from Q3′s level.

Both new prices on parts negotiated last year, as well as a slowdown in China, including the shutdown during the Chinese New Year, are affecting the company’s outlook, Rawls said.

Moreover, some telecommunications carriers were “adjusting inventory levels […] particularly for products previously on allocation and with long lead times, including our wavelength selective switches and ROADM line cards.”

Asked by analysts if this was a “pause” or a cyclical downturn, Rawls remarked that he had no “crystal ball,” but that the company is optimistic about the growing demand for bandwidth, and that Finisar’s customers “are still optimistic.”

“I’m still optimistic that fundamental demand is there,” said Rawls, “and I believe that longer term, if you draw a line through all of our quarters, you’re going to see the slope be positive.”

Nevertheless, Rawls said he wasn’t sure how to attribute the slowdown in business in China. “I don’t know,” Rawls said when challenged.

“Things that we had forecast only at the end of last year of expected orders and capacity demands that were going into 2011 that all of a sudden have been reduced dramatically.”

Other fiber optic device makers were crushed by Finisar’s forecast, with JDS Uniphase (JDSU) shares down $3.84, or 15%, at $21.54, Opnext (OPXT) down 33 cents, or 9%, at $3.41, Oplink Communications (OPLK) down $2.62, or 10%, at $23.00, and Emkor (EMKR) off 31 cents, or 10%, at $2.78.

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Shares of data center hosting firm Savvis (SVVS) have been on a wild ride this morning, rising as much as 9% at the open, only to give up much of those gains as the morning wore on.

The major factor driving the stock has been speculation that the company had hired an investment banker to shop it following the purchase of competitor Terremark (TMRK) by Verizon Communications (VZ) back in January.

However, a report by Dow Jones Newswires’s Steven Russolillo this morning cast doubt on the speculation: Russolillo quotes Savvis CEO Jim Ousley as stating, “We have not had any discussions with Qatalyst, not a single one. We have no idea where that rumor came from, we’ve never talked to those people.”

PE Hub’s Luisa Beltran reported on Friday that Savvis had retained Qatalyst Partners, led by former tech investment banker Fred Quattrone, citing an anonymous source. Beltran referred to the speculation on Qatalyst as rumor and noted that her source indicated the retention of Qatalyst was not “definitive.”

Not the first time Savvis has stepped in to quash rumors: As Beltran noted in her article, Reuters’s Nadia Damouni reported back on January 28th, the day after the Verizon-Terremark deal was announced, that Savvis denied hiring investment bankers.

Savvis shares currently are up 73 cents, or 2%, at $33.96.

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Shares of wireless chip vendor Spreadtrum Communications (SPRD) rose $2.58, or 11.9%, to $24.20 in late trading after the company this afternoon reported Q4 revenue and earnings above expectations and forecast the current quarter’s revenue ahead as well.

Spreadtrum, which is based in Zhangjiang, China, and draws most of its business from the Chinese wireless market, said Q4 revenue rose almost 200% at $127 million, beating the average $122 million estimate. Profit of 62 cents per share was ten cents better than expected.

Sales of wireless chips by unit volume rose 46% from Q3 for chips serving “2G” and “2.5G” cellular connections, the company said. Sales of chips for 3G connections rose 7% from quarter to quarter. Average selling price was down 2% from Q3 and down 26% from the prior-year period.

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue in a range of $130 million to $135 million, beating the average $109 million estimate.

CEO Leo Li said the quarter was an “impressive” end to the year, and that the 31.5% quarter-over-quarter jump in revenue in the quarter was testimony to the company’s gains in market share.

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