Fine by Lucent

Lucent was fined $25 million by the SEC for lack of cooperation in the commission’s investigation of an accounting fraud of more than $1.1 billion. The SEC alleged Lucent employees falsified documents, cut secret deals with customers and then hid the transgressions. The SEC began investigating Lucent after it announced that it had found accounting problems in late 2000. A settlement was agreed to last year, but regulators decided earlier this year to levy a fine for lack of cooperation. Regulators accused the company of failing to provide proper documentation, withholding evidence and neglecting to disclose to staff key issues concerning indemnification of employees, among other charges. http://www.nwfusion.com/edge/news/2004/0518lucensettl.html

Lucent was fined $25 million by the SEC for lack of cooperation in the commission’s investigation of an accounting fraud of more than $1.1 billion. The SEC alleged Lucent employees falsified documents, cut secret deals with customers and then hid the transgressions. The SEC began investigating Lucent after it announced that it had found accounting problems in late 2000. A settlement was agreed to last year, but regulators decided earlier this year to levy a fine for lack of cooperation. Regulators accused the company of failing to provide proper documentation, withholding evidence and neglecting to disclose to staff key issues concerning indemnification of employees, among other charges.

https://www.nwfusion.com/edge/news/2004/0518lucensettl.html

Verizon has begun an ambitious rollout of fiber optics to businesses and residences with the deployment of 440,000 feet of cabling in suburban Dallas. The carrier this week announced that it is about halfway through the build-out of a fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network to every home and business in Keller, Texas, a city of 25,000. When completed, Verizon will string 1.2 million feet of fiber through Keller. Verizon says some of the new broadband access products to be offered via FTTP will feature download speeds of 5M bit/sec, 15M bit/sec and 30M bit/sec, compared to 1M bit/sec and 4M bit/sec for DSL and cable. Verizon expects to begin marketing these and other FTTP-based products in Keller, and elsewhere in Texas and in other states, later this year.

https://www.nwfusion.com/edge/news/2004/0519foa.html

U.S. representatives are suggesting that voice/data convergence may require a rewriting of the 1996 Telecommunications Act – or that it be scrapped altogether. During a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) questioned what he called “stovepipe” regulation focused only on telecommunications providers. He predicted that Congress would begin to rewrite the 1996 Telecom Act next year.

https://www.nwfusion.com/edge/news/2004/0519lawmaconve.html