Big Telecom Names End 2000 on Gangplank Continued Nortel and Cisco have been criticized along with Lucent for lending money to their equipment buyers, some of which are now also suffering from the stock-market shakes. A conservative group even asked Janet Reno to investigate the matter. Presumably, the U.S. attorney general has come to know porn when she sees or hears about it. They must be passing around the gin and bitters at the regulated industry rest home. America Online , an ISP, wanted to marry up with Time Warner , a major cable provider.
Cable companies are one user of fiber-optic lines.
Other users include long-distance voice and data transmitters. Less formal slowdowns in orders for fiber-optic cable and the accompanying switches and routers have put companies from Corning to Nortel on the ropes in revenue growth. The group includes chipmakers, which have been double-whammied by slowdowns in both commercial and consumer buying of products that include them. Cellular-telephone makers like Motorola and Ericsson have experienced slumps in both consumer demand and their stocks, though Nokia is holding up rather well among investors. Same Old, Same Old New technologies may go untried because of the stock meltdown, but old quarrels and bureaucracies go on forever.