CISCO TO CUT UP TO 10,000 EMPLOYEES

Cisco could cut as many as 10,000 jobs — 14% of the company’s employees — in an effort to boost profits, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. 3,000 Cisco employees accepted buyouts and early retirement packages, which will cost Cisco between $500 million and $1.1 billion during the fourth quarter. While the layoff plans aren’t final, 7,000 more jobs could be cut by the end of August. The move comes as analysts predict that Cisco’s router and switches business will continue to slide into next year, and the company believes the job cuts could save it as much as $1 billion during 2012. “We will provide additional detail on the cost reductions, including layoffs, on our next earnings call,” Cisco spokesperson Karen Tillman said. The call is scheduled for early August. On April 12th, Cisco announced that it was restructuring its consumer business and killing off its Flip video camera arm.

RUMOR: CLEARWIRE SWITCHING TO LTE FROM WiMAX

In an interview with CNET, Clearwire’s chief operating officer Erik Prusch said that the carrier may eventually switch from WiMAX to LTE. “WiMAX to date has been a very good technology choice for us,” Prusch said. “We were able to take advantage of the speed to market before LTE was even a glimmer in anyone’s eye. But we recognize the ecosystem in the U.S. will be larger for LTE than WiMAX, so we are conscious of that.” Last summer Clearwire confirmed that it would begin testing 4G LTE trials in the U.S., and it expected to demonstrate that it “[could] deliver significantly higher performance using LTE technologies than any other operator.”

It’s unclear how those tests went, but Prusch did backtrack a bit and say that a switch isn’t definite, and that Clearwire needs to keep its eye on LTE and its ecosystem before pulling the trigger and setting a definite timeline.

Last month Sprint — which owns a majority stake of Clearwire — said that it has agreed to pay the company $1 billion through 2012 for fees associated with the use of Clearwire’s 4G WiMAX network.

AT&T TO LOSE UP TO 26% OF CUSTOMERS

According to a survey by ChangeWave Research, AT&T's customer churn rate is increasing with 15% of their customers planning to switch in the next 90 days. In contrast Verizon has only 4% of customers saying they will switch in the next 90 days.

16% of current AT&T customers say they'll switch to Verizon now that they offer the iPhone, and 23% don't know if they'll switch. 26% of current iPhone owners say they'll switch to Verizon. ChangeWave stated "The Verizon iPhone is causing a major transformational shift in the wireless industry, and for now the momentum clearly favors Verizon."

You do wonder how many of these customers remember that they have a $325 ETF (pro-rated at -$10 per month. AT&T's putting a lot of stock in the fact that the majority of their customers who'd like to leave can't or won't -- because they're locked into long term contract, or are on a family or business plan.

There was some good news for AT&T in the survey. Their dropped call rate decreased, however it is still higher than Verizon's rate.