Lucent Hangs Up VoIP Line
Jeff Baumgartner -- Multichannel News, 2/12/2001
With layoffs that eventually could hit 16,000 workers, Lucent Technologies is in the process of disbanding its cable group as the company explores ways to combine overlapping products or scrap them altogether, sources said.
Lucent's PathStar line, used by some cable operators for Voice-over-Internet-protocol trials, "if not dead, is on the chopping block," an informed source said last Friday. Many PathStar group employees, based in Murray Hill, N.J., also have been let go, causing problems for MSOs that use PathStar.
Comcast Corp., which is using PathStar gear for a VoIP trial in Union, N.J., has racks of gear on its hands and calls to remaining PathStar staff have gone mostly unanswered, sources said. Time Warner Cable is also using Lucent's equipment in a Portland, Maine, trial.
Lucent and MSO officials could not be reached at press time.
