An article about the sneaky financial dealings of the telecom industry. Time Warner Telecom, Sonus, Qwest, Williams, Winstar, Global Crossing, Corvis, Tellium, Lucent, Sycamore, WorldCom, Alteon, Nortel, and others.

Supplier to telco: "Buy my gear, please!"
Telco to supplier: [Silence]
Supplier to telco: "Would you like stock options with that router?"
Telco to supplier: "Done!"

... The fact that companies and their executives profited from investments in fledgling suppliers may help explain why there was such a gross misallocation of capital in the sector, and why networks that cost billions to build fetch far less in bankruptcy auctions.

An article about the sneaky financial dealings of the telecom industry. Time Warner Telecom, Sonus, Qwest, Williams, Winstar, Global Crossing, Corvis, Tellium, Lucent, Sycamore, WorldCom, Alteon, Nortel, and others.

... The fact that companies and their executives profited from investments in fledgling suppliers may help explain why there was such a gross misallocation of capital in the sector, and why networks that cost billions to build fetch far less in bankruptcy auctions.

This article implies a problem that is much more broad then likely existed. There were a lot of these sort of relationships in the industry, and not just between big telecoms and small equipment companies, but also between small telecoms and big equipment companies. There are many reasons for getting involved in a deal like this. Telecoms want cheaper gear and good support for it. Equipment dealers want environments that push the technical limits of their gear and/or need large customers who validate their offerings in the marketplace. Throwing stock into the deal is little different then lowering a price. If the equipment didn't work, or wasn't used, or wasn't really bought, then thats obviously a problem, but the overall value of telecom networks in the current environment has to do with sellers pressured by debt and an overcapacity in infrastructure rather then an inflation of the value of *new hardware.*

Extent of network capacity in most cases was based on demand estimates made by investment firms. Most people were not building capacity just to buy equipment. Its not impossible that this occured, but most of the industry is not guilty of this.