Alcatel Buying Lucent

In a move that will consolidate two telco hardware companies that have hit rough times, Alcatel is in merge talks with Lucent. Lucent, a former AT&T, only has a couple of customers left - AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and Qwest (who is being eyed by VZ). The CLEC market has dried up for Lucent. Alcatel made its fame in BOC DSL. Now it is pushing into PON, but how many customers will that be? Marconi (the famous radio company) was eaten by Ericsson. That leaves Nortel standing alone, feeling like Qwest. (Nortel does have a JV with LG, might be some future there).