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Technology Stocks : Nortel Networks (NT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Phoenix who wrote (9415)	1/24/2001 12:12:05 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

FIBER BARONS FEAR CAPACITY GLUT Fear of a bandwidth glut and an impending consolidation were the major concerns of international telecom executives at the Pacific Telecommunications Council's annual show in Honolulu this week. Executives from global submarine cable operators expressed fears that there was excessive capacity coming on the market and that industry risk had become unacceptably high. Leading the concern was Level 3 International CEO Colin Williams who warned a forum of several hundred industry executives that they did "not have a way to understand how demand is going." "We're going to have the same issues as the railway industry - we have significant over-capacity", he warned. Level 3 had recently been trying to minimize its risk by working in joint ventures with other operators for major terabit cables including FLAG and Global Crossing. But Cable & Wireless' announcement earlier this month of a new multi-terabit cable across the Atlantic, Apollo, had "blown my thinking away", he said. Other carrier executives also fear a glut. Telstra managing director, global wholesale business John Hibbard said he estimated that there was only 100 gigabits of utilized capacity on current submarine cables. "When you look at the six and eight terabit cables coming on the market, one wonders how sort of growth you need to get fills on these cables", he said. But other executives said that while there may be a temporary over-supply, burgeoning bandwidth demand would ensure that new cables were eventually filled. Tycom director, strategic information Andy Kowalik said his company's data showed that supply would actually trail demand on the trans-Pacific route. But he acknowledged that with ten major players on the trans-Atlantic route, capital markets would "pressure the viability of weaker carriers." americasnetwork.com