IP: Glorious hopes on a trillion-dollar scrapheap

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff () iconia com>
> To: "Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
>
> Glorious hopes on a trillion-dollar scrapheap
> Dan Roberts explains how reckless optimism has led to bankruptcies, job
> losses and an awesome glut of capacity
> Published: September 4 2001 19:01
> The Financial Times
>
> Down by the decaying dockyards, in an anonymous industrial park east of
> London, the telecommunications industry is suffering its final indignity.
>
> Every morning, lorries arrive with refrigerator-sized cabinets of
> electronics. The plastic bubble-wrap designed to protect them from the Essex
> drizzle cannot obscure the names on the cabinet: Nortel, Ericsson, Lucent
> and Cisco, the stars of one of the most remarkable bull markets in history.
>
> Not that the protection is necessary these days. Shields Environmental,
> which this year expects to receive 6,000 tonnes of unwanted gear, tries to
> strip and sell as many of the parts as it can from the telecoms equipment.
> But a large telecoms operator has gone bust on average every six days for
> the past six months and the second-hand market is saturated.
>
> Hence many of the cabinets will be taken apart by hand for disposal. Each,
> once worth millions of dollars, will yield a smattering of precious metals
> and other scrap, some toxic components and a lot of plastic, which is sent
> to nearby incinerators for burning.
>
> --SNIP--
>
> http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3HX8NZ7RC
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> geoff.goodfellow () iconia com, Prague CZ * tel/mobil +420 (0)603 706 558
> "success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get"
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/17drop.html



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