Is it conceivable that shares of AT&T might trade for less than $5?

Nokia led a drop in Euro techs on Wednesday as investors were rattled by talk that Cisco would miss earnings forecasts.

Bad news from Cisco would dash any hopes of an imminent market recovery ... As Nokia and Alcatel fell, Vodafone was hit hit by comments from NTT DoCoMo that growth in Japan was slowing.

DoCoMo expects to sign up 30% fewer new subscribers this FY ... "The market is nervous because wireless data seems to get further and further away with every month. We are mildly concerned that as wireless data moves further out, then the battleground between operators could move to the voice market."

Telecoms shares have plunged since March 2000 as a global economic slowdown has been compounded by over-capacity and concerns about delays in new technologies, forcing telecoms companies to slash investments and jobs as debts and losses rise.

Cisco fell 8% overnight; Nokia, 4%; Alcatel, 2%; Vodaphone, down 3% to a 4 year low; WorldCom, down nearly 12% on Wednesday alone -- it's down 70% in 2002; Lucent shares fell 4% to an all-time low.

The hard hit telecom sector took another battering on Tuesday as Verizon ... warned there would be no growth in revenues ... [From Bloomberg, Reuters: What's more, Verizon said it doesn't expect improvement in revenue growth in the near term. It wasn't more specific.] ... Analysts warned investors to brace themselves for more bad news.

"First quarter results are expected to remain depressed across all companies in the telecom sector." SoundView lowered earnings estimates for BellSouth, citing Argentina and Venezuela; stock loses 7% to hit 4 year low. ... Verizon will take a $2.5B charge and does not expect growth; stock down 3%. WorldCom promises to cut capex but still loses over 10%. SBC loses 4.5%, Sprint 3%, Quest 3%, Vodafone 3.5%, Nokia and Alcatel down. BT will cut 18,000 jobs and promises to find a way to pay off $14B in debt. Nortel maxes out its credit line for another $1.9B after banks decline to increase its limit; stock is down 51% this year. Analyst: "Nortel has sufficient resources to survive the downturn; the odds of a Nortel bankruptcy are less than 10%." ...

...[Google] spent nothing to advertise their site and cut very few deals with other sites. ... Silicon Valley's hottest private company, one deluged with 1,000 résumés a day. ....

has its share of challenges. ... the leader in searching Web pages, but a tiny force in advertising ...

But the bigger question is whether Google has the scale to capture a viable share of the search advertising market. In other words, can Google create a business model even remotely as good as its technology?

Analyst: "The days of investing in Web sites we love are over. People rave about Google. But as a business, it will take an awful lot for them to catch up to [competitors]."

Founders: if they devote themselves to improving technology, users and advertisers will follow.

"We have pride that we are building a service that is really important to the world and really successful for the long term."

... The company is so infatuated with its technical prowess and sense of destiny that it has developed a reputation as being difficult to deal with.

"Serge and Larry are very blunt and very cocky. They honestly believe they can do a better job than other people, and they don't have any hesitation in saying that."

Google's CEO: "I think you need to win, but you are better off winning softly."

... The biggest challenge is balancing Google's increasing popularity with the needs and demands of the sites for which it provides search technology. ... But Google does not yet appear to have sufficient clout with some of the bigger sites.

"At the end of the day, Google is becoming more of a competitor to Microsoft and MSN. We want to work with partners who don't compete with us."

US telcos are spending up to $30B to upgrade their networks for high-speed data communications, even though they're still uncertain who will pay to use it. ... "3G" [has been an] economic nightmare for the European telcos that spent $200B on spectrum licenses and now have no money left to actually build their networks. ... US carriers already facing financial difficulties: unable to raise capital; struggling to handle network maintenance. ...

A Verizon executive: "I'll be honest: I don't know what the market demand will be for the products and services offered with 3G." ... "Some people are never going to use data." ...

... growing skepticism ... over whether it makes good business sense to spend money on services that enable people to e-mail photos from cell phones, or to design business presentations on a laptop in a moving vehicle. ...

The markets punished Nortel on Friday, driving it down 11% to its lowest level in 6-1/2 years after a credit rating cut.

Market players who have watched the nosedive of the stock that was once the bellwether of Canadian markets wondered how much lower the telecommunications equipment maker can plunge.

A trader: "It's a company under attack. How low does it go? Who the hell knows. It is definitely under attack and it will probably stay that way for a while."

NTT, Japan's largest telco, will post an annual loss of about $6.5B, the largest ever by a Japanese company other than a bank.

Charges taken by NTT subsidiaries because of the plummeting values of their overseas investments are mainly responsible for the loss. NTT will write off more than $15B on its investments in AT&T Wireless , KPN Mobile, Verio, and others. ...

With the huge loss, NTT joins other telecommunications companies whose balance sheets have been decreased in the last 18 months.