Telecommunications

Shares of Ciena Corp. jumped almost 23 percent yesterday on speculation that the Linthicum telecommunications equipment maker might soon win a new contract or be acquired by a larger company.Ciena shares gained $4.1875 to close at $22.5625, a 22.8 percent increase. It was the company's highest closing price since Sept. 8.Feverish takeover speculation is nothing new for Ciena. Since a proposed merger with Tellabs Inc. fell apart Sept. 14, there have been rumors that other large makers of telecommunications-network gear might want to buy Ciena.

AS THE only jurisdiction in the Baltimore area operating with a cap on property taxes, Anne Arundel County needs all the revenue it can get, its officials often say. So why didn't they negotiate more favorable leases for telecommunications antennas on county property?As The Sun's Laura Sullivan reported this week, the terms of county leases vary greatly. In 14 of 15 leases for telecommunications towers, the county charges companies a rates that vary from $4,500 to almost $40,000 annually.

CIENA CORP., a Linthicum telecommunications equipment company, announced last week that it is buying two small firms, Lightera Networks Inc. and Omnia Communications Inc., in separate stock deals initially valued at a combined $981 million.Ciena is only beginning to recover from a streak of severe financial setbacks, and was itself rumored to be a takeover target.How risky is Ciena's purchase of Lightera and Omnia? What does Ciena stand to gain from owning these young, untried companies?David ToungAnalyst, Argus Research Corp.

Ciena Corp. said yesterday that it has completed its $474 million purchase of Omnia Communications Inc. The acquisition is part of Linthicum-based Ciena's strategy to offer a wider range of telecommunications network services.Ciena gained national prominence as a maker of equipment that allows fiber-optic networks to carry more phone calls and Internet messages. The company ran into setbacks last year as larger, more diversified rivals began competing in Ciena's market.On March 15, Ciena announced that it was buying Marlborough, Mass.

Starting today, downtown Baltimore will be host to an unusual sort of business gathering. American Communications Network Inc., a Farmington Hills, Mich., telecommunications company, is holding a three-day sales training conference at the Baltimore Arena and the Baltimore Hilton & Towers Hotel. About 7,000 people are expected.What sets this event apart from the normal sales conference is ACN's rather novel business strategy. While most sizable telephone and Internet companies use telemarketers and big in-house sales departments, ACN relies on at-home entrepreneurs selling to racquetball buddies and church pals.

To help it fund a satellite-linked wireless phone network for a former Soviet republic, Omni Communications Inc. said yesterday that it has formed a joint venture with Metromedia International Group, a public, New Jersey-based media and communications company.The Baltimore telecommunications company said the new company, Omni Metromedia Caspian Ltd., based in the Bahamas, had acquired Omni's interest in Caspian American Telecommunications LLC, a company started by Omni in 1997 to operate its exclusive 20-year license to build a wireless network from the Republic of Azerbaijan.

AT&T's breakup 14 years ago and the enactment of the 1996 Telecommunications Act were intended to spur competition and innovation in the nation's telephone and telecommunications service. The proposed merger of two Baby Bell companies, SBC Communications Inc. and Ameritech Corp., raises the possibility that the nation won't fully realize the full benefits of telephone deregulation.Vigorous competition exists in certain telecommunications markets, such as long distance and wireless communications.

A rival telephone company is about to enter Bell Atlantic territory.SBC Communications Inc., perhaps the most aggressive of the nation's regional telephone companies, announced yesterday that it has agreed to merge with Southern New England Telecommunications Corp., a phone company that serves Connecticut.The $4.4 billion all-stock merger would give SBC a beachhead in the Northeast, a region that Bell Atlantic Corp. has dominated since its merger with Nynex last year.Many analysts had expected that SNET might be absorbed.

Ciena Corp., finally feeling the pinch of strident competition in a market niche it essentially pioneered, will likely have to take less than planned from suitor Tellabs Inc., or find another merger partner altogether, industry and securities analysts said yesterday.With nearly all its business coming in one product niche and from two customers -- Sprint Corp. and WorldCom Inc. -- and with intensifying competition from telecommunications-equipment behemoth Lucent Technologies Inc., analysts say Ciena could find it virtually impossible to continue to go it alone.

The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson is leading an alliance of labor and religious groups in opposition to the biggest proposed merger in corporate history.At a New York news conference yesterday, Jackson and others called for a halt to the $37 billion deal between WorldCom Inc. and MCI Communications Corp., saying the marriage of the telecommunications giants will hinder competition and bring job losses."We are speaking for the stakeholders who represent higher standards and consumers who want more and fairer access," Jackson said.

Police and firefighters using videoconferences for training. High school students taking college-level courses online. Residents telecommuting instead of racking up mileage and gas bills. Carroll County officials envision these scenarios, and more, as potential benefits of a fiber-optic cable network winding its way through the area. Today, representatives from county agencies - the government, school system, community college and library - plan to celebrate the developing 110-mile network.

It takes diligence to keep telecommunications spending in check because prices and offerings change frequently. Among those changes is the triple-play bundle, which includes television, telephone and Internet services. This winter might finally be the time to bundle up. Previously, many experts pooh-poohed these bundles as being more expensive than shopping for each service alone. And that still is true if you're a light user of these services. But growing competition between cable TV and phone companies, which sometimes team with satellite TV companies, has led to sweeter deals.

Investors who bought into the telecommunications explosion are smiling: The sector continues to provide volatile yet superior stock results. Wireless technology continues to envelop the world, as consumers in mature and developing markets alike are becoming hooked on mobile data and entertainment at their fingertips. Consolidation has further helped to drive up telecommunications stock prices. The pending $27 billion buyout of Alltel Corp. by TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners is a prominent example.

Ciena Corp., the Linthicum telecommunications equipment company, said yesterday that it completed a 7-to-1 reverse stock split and the company's stock would trade under a new ticker symbol for 20 days. The reverse split, announced earlier this month and effective after the market closed Friday, reduced the number of Ciena's outstanding shares sevenfold, to 140 million from 980 million, and increased the per-share price by the same proportion. In trading yesterday, shares closed at $29.68, down 35 cents from Friday's split-adjusted price of $30.03.

The last vestige of Corvis Corp., the Columbia optical fiber optic startup that had a meteoric rise during the technology boom, is being taken over by a Silicon Valley company. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Infinera Corp. has licensed Corvis' intellectual property and will absorb 40 employees left in Columbia, adding a dozen or so of its own local employees. After the implosion of the telecom sector, Corvis bought telecommunications services company Broadwing Corp. of Austin, Texas, in 2003 and assumed its name a year later to reflect its change of business focus.

Broadwing Corp., the Columbia telecommunications company formerly known as Corvis Corp., said yesterday that founder David Huber stepped down as chief executive officer as the company moves into the role of service provider. Huber, who led Corvis through the technology boom and its subsequent stock fall when the bubble burst, will remain chairman of the company's board of directors. A replacement for CEO has not been named, but the board is beginning a search and expects to hire Huber's successor during the second quarter, said company spokesman Donovan Dillon.

David Lange, 63, a former New Zealand prime minister and architect of the nation's anti-nuclear policy that strained relations with the United States, died Saturday of complications from kidney failure at a hospital in the northern city of Auckland, his family said. Mr. Lange, a Labor prime minister from 1984 to 1989, defied the United States and other Western allies in 1985 by banning nuclear arms and nuclear-powered ships from New Zealand territory and waters. The ban is still in effect.

Bernard J. Ebbers, the former WorldCom chief executive once hailed as one of the most brilliant telecommunications entrepreneurs ever, told a packed courtroom yesterday, "I don't know about technology and I don't know about finance and accounting." In taking the stand in his own defense, Ebbers displayed a folksy innocence that was part of the defense's effort to cast him as someone who relied on others with greater expertise to handle the details of running WorldCom as it grew from a small regional reseller of phone services to one of the largest companies in American industry.

From audacious startup to industry innovator to an insatiable acquirer that came to symbolize the corporate greed that brought down other high-fliers, MCI's story had it all. In 1968, William G. McGowan saw the potential to make history with the fledgling MCI, which had begun five years earlier as an 11-employee company that went on to build a row of microwave towers to connect truckers with dispatchers. McGowan set the seemingly impossible goal of breaking the stranglehold that American Telephone and Telegraph Co. held on telephone lines in the United States.

Ciena Corp. shares jumped 23 percent yesterday after the battered maker of telecommunications gear reported better-than-expected results for its fiscal fourth quarter - and said first-quarter sales would top estimates. Ciena, based in Linthicum, said sales in the three months that ended Oct. 31 rose 16 percent to $82 million over the comparable period last year - better than the $76.3 million analysts had expected. And the company said it expected sales to keep growing in the current quarter, to as much as $90 million.