Telecom Ramblings

As we approach the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, it seems as though the whole internet infrastructure sector is in a deep emotional depression.  Valuations remain rock bottom, and it’s sector-wide. Nobody has been spared, not even the datacenter space though they continue to grow despite it.  Telecom equipment makers from Alcatel-Lucent (ALU: chart, news) to Ciena (CIEN: chart, news) are preparing for disaster, and Nortel Networks (NT: chart, news) is even considering bankruptcy.The money has dried up, and network operators are running scared.  We even have the unthinkable happening the other day in the content world – the man with the golden touch, Niklas Zennstrom, finally misfired.  Joost has been forced to abandon its original approach and move to delivery by website. Apparently P2P has finally found a bandwidth task it can’t master. The malaise is giving bloggers writer’s block.

What to do? BearOnBusiness suggests we remember our own ingenuity.  I agree, and I’ll add that much of the negativity out there comes not from failure but from lack of appreciation from the financial markets. So what?  The networks and applications still work don’t they?  They’re still growing, becoming more powerful, more capable.  Builders don’t need to be appreciated all the time, we only need to build to be happy.  The rest of the economy will fix its problems eventually and catch up, but for now only those who need the credit markets need to care.

This storm will blow over eventually. And in a few days, the nights start getting shorter too.