WorldCom to Lay Off 10%
The struggling telecom giant prepares to cut workers in the midst of an industry meltdown. (more)

AT&T, Comcast Commit to ISP Access
The offering to open their merged cable lines to multiple ISPs comes on the heels of a contentious FCC rule change that could essentially free the company from any requirements to do so. (more)

Metromedia Defaults Again; Ousts CEO
A bankruptcy filing looks likely after the long-haul fiber carrier missed an $8.1 million payment, triggering a cross-default on about $674 million worth of notes. (more)

Owners Approve McLeod Restructuring
An investment firm will have a majority stake in McLeodUSA once a bankruptcy judge signs off on the deal next month. (more)

Optical Cable Extends Credit Facility
Wachovia agrees to replace current $9.5 million line of credit with three-year, $25 million deal. (more)

Global Crossing Restructures SWIFT Deal
The down-on-its-luck data carrier agrees to rework a network services agreement with one of its most valuable customers. (more)

Product News

Nortel Treks Down Under For $175M Deal
Nortel Networks has won a strategic five-year, $175 million supply and services contract with Australia's Optus Telecom for its optical and VoIP technology, including OPTera Connect HDX optical switches and Succession softswitches. Under the terms of the agreement, Nortel Networks expects to build a 10 gigabits-per-second, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) link between Brisbane and Perth, completing national rollout of Optus' DWDM optical network. Nortel Networks will extend Optus' DWDM access into Australia's metropolitan areas.

This is the second HDX contract in two weeks, following the announcement with Touch America, officials said. In addition, this is the third VoIP contract in two weeks, including the announcements with China Telecom and Connex.

SynTera to Use UMC's 0.13-Micron Technology
SynTera Corp. signed an agreement with UMC to use its world-class semiconductor technology at 0.13-micron for production of SynTera's next-generation optical networking framer silicon. UMC's 0.13-micron technology helps enable SynTera to provide the world's most advanced OC-192 SONET/SDH and OC-768 SONET/SDH framer solutions.

Pirelli Intros FineLight Giga and FineLight Base Fibers
Pirelli Communications Cables and Systems North America has expanded its lineup of industry-leading optical fibers with the addition of FineLight Giga fiber and FineLight Base fiber, creating a distinctive new family of products for fiber-to-the- business, premises and LAN applications. FineLight Base and FineLight Giga optical fibers are the industry's first single-mode fibers with the capability of operation at the 850 nanometer window. As a consequence, system providers can build a network with a fiber optic cable that meets today's requirements for multi-mode operation, and which can be upgraded, on the same fiber, to single-mode operation as tomorrow's demands dictate.

Metrobility, Advertising.com in Pact
Metrobility Optical Systems said Advertising.com, Inc., a provider of web, e-mail and wireless marketing services, is utilizing Metrobility's patented "redundant twister" technology to enable failover protection between its production servers and Cisco switches and routers. The "redundant twister" provides path protection and restoration by incorporating dual links with automatic failover capabilities from Advertising.com's production servers to the Cisco switch/router infrastructure. Many of the 198 servers in production are dual homed operations thereby doubling the importance and function of each server as they operate on two discrete networks simultaneously. The use of the "redundant twister" provides redundancy to two networks for each server used.

Other News

ARCOS Speeds Along
New World Network, principal owner of the Americas Region Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS), a submarine broadband fiber-optic cable network fully interconnecting the Americas and the Caribbean, is celebrating the connectivity provided by ARCOS in Costa Rica. ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad), the government owned power utility in Costa Rica will provide in-country backhaul through the cable landing station in Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. RACSA, a subsidiary of ICE will provide ARCOS solutions and specialized value-added services throughout the country.