It looks like carrier network specialist Ciena will emerge as the winner of Nortel’s optical networking and carrier Ethernet assets, following an extended auction that took place over the weekend.
Canadian vendor Nortel has delayed the next stage of its fire sale until later this week, giving potential bidders for its Optical Networking and Carrier Ethernet businesses and extra few days to get bids together.
Carrier network specialist Ciena has forged an agreement with Nortel to acquire the exiting Canadian firm’s optical networking and carrier Ethernet assets for $390m in cash and ten million shares of Ciena common stock estimated to be worth a further $131m.

Carrier Ethernet is no longer the new kid on the block. Its many virtues, from flexibility and scalability to lower operational costs and greater simplicity and interoperability, are now well understood and widely attractive to carriers and, more importantly, their customers.
Monster kit vendor Nokia Siemens Networks has teamed up with security and network infrastructure firm Juniper Networks to bolster their offerings in the Carrier Ethernet space.