Update: Alcatel to buy Nortel's 3G business
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Alcatel has reached a preliminary agreement to buy Nortel Network's 3G (third-generation) mobile phone network business for $320 million.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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By LAURENCE FROST  PARIS - Alcatel's purchase of U.S. rival Lucent Technologies Inc.
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(InfoWorld) - Network equipment manufacturer Avaya Inc. late Monday agreed to a $8.2 billion cash buyout by private equity firms TPG Capital LLP and Silver Lake Partners, the companies announced. This latest acquisition continues a recent trend of networking and telecommunications firms being bought by private equity firms. In late May, TPG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s private equity arm bought mobile service provider Alltel Corp. for $27.5 billion. Bell Canada Ltd. remains a takeover target of a potential bid by Cerberus Capital Management LP. The Basking Ridge, New Jersey company's board of directors have accepted a $17.50 per share offer, which must still be approved by Avaya shareholders. The offer places a premium of around 28 percent on the firm's value over Avaya's May 25 closing price of $13.67, the last day beforeÂ rumors begun to circulateÂ that the company would likely be acquired. The deal is expected to close in the fall of this year, the companies said. The agreement allows Avaya to actively encourage bids for the company from other third parties over the next 50 days. Avaya's relatively high cash flow and low debt made it a target to go private. Along with TPG and Silver Lake, Nortel Networks Corp. was also pursuing the former AT&T telecom equipment maker. Â
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Nortel Networks on Monday declined to comment on a news report that the company is negotiating with Motorola to combine wireless infrastructure units.&quot;Nortel doesn&#39;t comment on rumors and speculation,&quot; a Nortel spokesman said.The two companies are talking as a way to cut costs in a network equipment market that is consolidating and facing stiff competition, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.The deal with Nortel would be separate from Motorola&#39;s announcement last month that it was&#160;considering spinning off its mobile handset business, the Journal reported. Motorola on Jan. 31 announced it was looking at separating the lagging handset division from the rest of its business.A Motorola spokeswoman wasn&#39;t immediately available for comment Monday.A combined wireless infrastructure unit would have sales around $10 billion, the Journal reported. Talks between Motorola and Nortel have been going on for about a month, the news report said, and under one scenario, Nortel would own a majority of the joint venture.Both companies have faced challenges recently. Motorola last month reported a loss of $49 million for 2007, due largely to declining handset sales.But fourth-quarter 2007 sales were up in the Home and Networks Mobility group, which makes set-top boxes and wireless infrastructure. The group saw sales rise 11 percent to $2.7 billion from the fourth quarter of 2006.Last year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged seven former Nortel executives with participating in a 2003 accounting fraud by manipulating reserves to manage Nortel&#39;s earnings.Last February, Nortel announced it would lay off 2,900 employees and move another 1,000 jobs to low-cost locations throughout 2007 and 2008.
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Nortel Networks Corp., North America&#39;s biggest maker of phone equipment, will pare 3,250 jobs, 250 fewer than it predicted last month, as it reduces other costs including real estate.
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PARIS/NEW YORK  - Alcatel CGEP.PA and Lucent   LU.N on Thursday moved closer to tying the knot after their   shareholders backed the French telecoms equipment group's $10.9   billion all-share acquisition of its U.S. rival.
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Sprint Corp. FON.N on Wednesday  agreed to buy mobile telephone company Nextel Communications  Inc. NXTL.O in a deal worth $35.17 billion to gain more  business customers and more airwaves to transmit calls.
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(InfoWorld) - Nortel Networks is spending 10 times as much on mobile wireless WiMax technology research today as it did a year ago, part of an initiative by Nortel chief technology officer John Roese in his first year at the post. Nortel's research investment in mobile WiMax, also known as 802.16e, is now $100 million, up from $10 million a year ago, Roese said in a recent interview as he celebrated his first anniversary. He assumed the CTO position in June 2006. As CTO, Roese oversees the $1.7 billion R&D budget for the networking equipment maker. That amount is about 17 percent of Nortel's revenues, slightly down from 19 percent a year ago, although the division still employs about 12,000 professionals, he said. The biggest shift at Nortel R&D is a stronger emphasis on WiMax and other emerging technologies, which was accomplished by lowering Nortel's R&D in what Roese called "late-lifecycle products," such as GSM technology, that still need research but are generally well defined in the market, he said. A year ago, half the R&D budget went for late-lifecycle products; now that figure has been reduced to 20 percent of the R&D budget. "Fifty percent on late-lifecycle products was inefficient," Roese said. Roese said it is important in R&D to have top developers working on the next wave of technology, not on declining segments. In all, about 20 percent of R&D is now devoted to emerging technologies such as mobile WiMax, while 60 percent is devoted to products in the middle of their lifecycle. Nortel also sold its UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) unit to Alcatel-Lucent, which will help R&D focus on other areas, Roese said. The unit was not profitable, he said. Roese believes unified communications products, including mobile WiMax, will bring "huge productivity" to network providers and large businesses alike. Fixed WiMax, or 802.16d, is already being shipped to carriers to provide backhaul communications for cellular networks but has been implemented in some parts of the world to provide broadband access instead of using copper cable. Mobile WiMax will be a high-performance wireless data network for laptops and consumer devices, Roese said, and will eventually be used for voice service as a competitor to cellular voice. "WiMax is just emerging," he said. "It can be a reusable network for mobile data, DSL replacement, video distribution, and real 4G wireless. It will be built once and used for many purposes." Some cities and towns building municipal Wi-Fi networks have been interested in whether WiMax, fixed or mobile, might be the next-generation technology that threatens Wi-Fi, but Roese said Wi-Fi and WiMax will likely be complementary. Wi-Fi runs in an unlicensed spectrum, while WiMax will run in a licensed spectrum, he noted. "You'll want endpoints from unlicensed and licensed, so you want Wi-Fi and WiMax to both come together. You may be uplinking Wi-Fi endpoints via WiMax." The WiMax Forum expects WiMax-based systems to deliver up to 40Mbps of data per channel over as much as six miles.
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PARIS - French telecommunications equipment specialist Alcatel SA has acquired a U.S. manufacturer of conferencing and collaboration products, eDial Inc., Alcatel said Friday.
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NEW YORK: Verizon Wireless said on Thursday it had signed an agreement with NextWave Telecom to purchase all of its airwave licences for $3bn.
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(InfoWorld) - Alcatel has reached a preliminary agreement to buy Nortel Network's 3G (third-generation) mobile phone network business for $320 million. Under terms of the proposed deal, Alcatel will acquire Nortel's UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Business) radio access business, including 14 Nortel customer contracts, the companies announced Friday. UMTS is a 3G telecoms standard used in Europe based on W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access). The deal would make Alcatel one of the biggest suppliers of UMTS gear worldwide, giving it contracts with one in four UMTS operators, it said. The companies have signed a nonbinding agreement to merge and hope to close the deal by the end of the year. Closing the merger depends on arriving at a final acquisition agreement, negotiations with works councils, and securing regulatory and other approvals, they said. A "significant majority" of Nortel's employees in the UMTS division would be transferred to Alcatel, the companies said.. The deal appears not to affect Alcatel'sÂ proposed merger with Lucent, announced in April. That deal is due to be voted on by shareholders of both companies on Sept. 7, although some Lucent shareholders opposed the deal and are trying toÂ block the vote in court. Alcatel said it would involve Lucent in the integration of the UMTS business. The sale by Nortel continues aÂ restructuring plan at the companyÂ that has included 1,900 job cuts over the next year. The Canadian company said in a statement its UMTS access business "lacks the scale and momentum needed to become profitable." Nortel said it will continue to develop GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and other mobile technologies, as the company focuses on emerging 4G mobile video and multimedia services. Alcatel sees the acquisition as a way to build on an expanding UMTS market and increase it technology portfolio for major operators such as Orange and Vodafone.
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InfoWorld - An acquisition of Avaya by Nortel might help the buyer expand its enterprise telephony business and pare down a crowded industry, but the deal could be tough for customers.
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Greece's third largest mobile phone company is being sold for 3.4bn euros.
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Canadian telecom equipment giant Nortel  Networks Corp.  has signed a $2-billion (C$2.32  billion) supply deal with Verizon Wireless  to help the  carrier cope with an explosion in demand for broadband Internet  access.
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Verizon Wireless has agreed to buy wireless spectrum licenses covering 23 US markets from bankrupt NextWave Telecom Inc. for $3 billion in a deal that would boost Verizon&#39;s capacity in several major markets.
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Japanese mobile phone firm DoCoMo is in talks to buy 3G handsets from Motorola.
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Verizon Wireless said on Thursday that it had signed an agreement with NextWave Telecom Inc. to purchase all of its airwave licenses for $3 billion.