Don --
Based on what I heard at today's H&Q presentation, there are others besides Fidelity buying in. I won't name names, but they're ones you'd recognize. The formal presentation was completely full, as was the breakout session (for analysts only). A couple comments might be worth sharing. One analyst asked about NN's biggest customers and John used British Telecom as an example. The analyst seemed impressed and asked how many others were like that. The answer came back that Cable and Wireless, SBC, Global One (ramping more quickly than some expect), Bell Atlantic, AT&T, Bell Canada, Deutsche Telecom, and France Telecom were of that caliber. NN has 320 customers of which 97% are in the carrier space.
A bit later in the session, someone asked if anyone had followed Ascend's conference call and if so what their ATM growth had been. The response was immediate, "2 to 3%." To which someone said, "They explained it was due to seasonal slowness." He then asked if NN was experiencing the same and the response was a definite negative.
Jim Arsenault's formal presentation was excellent. NN's complete ATM/IP strategy was laid out with the emphasis being on managed services, not network boxes. He explained how next generation routers will work with ATM, bringing the two network technologies together in a way that's fully managed. The question, of course, was how to do this. He said alternate providers will start with pure IP, ILECs will start with ATM. Historically NN's been strong in the carrier space, but they're making inroads into the alternate space as adaptive services can't operate on pure IP. The three affiliates included in the slide presentation were TimeStep, FastLane, and Bridgewater.
In the breakout session, someone asked about LMDS and was told the bid activity was robust, especially in Latin America and Europe. "Lots of RFPs." When asked about Siemens, an analyst was told the relationship was healthy, alive and improving. "They're acitively bidding our new initiatives. We provide 50% of their datacom revenues. We'd like them to deliver more." [This in response to Siemens' acquisitions.]
The 30-minute Q&A went nearly an hour. I'm not seeing the skepticism I saw 6 months ago. There's definitely a new sense of interest and even respect.
Pat
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