--MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Following the departure of several board members, Exodus Communications, which manages corporations' Web sites, said it was willing to consider takeover offers, according to published reports.

"In today's environment, if a company did come forward with an attractive offer, the burden would be on us and our board to look closely at it," Exodus Chief Executive Ellen Hancock told USA Today on Wednesday for a report published Thursday.

Hancock's concession came after months of defending the Web-hosting company's independence, the newspaper reported.

Exodus announced on the departure of board members Mark Dubovoy, managing partner of Leapfrog Ventures; Thadeus Mocarski, managing director of Navis Partners; and Naomi Seligman, senior partner of Cassius Advisors.

Excite@Home’s financial statements will no longer be viewed by auditors

Ernst&Young, who had questioned the company’s finances. It named

PricewaterhouseCoopers as its new accounting firm.

Excite@Home had switched its accounting firm after having its independent auditors express doubt that the company could generate enough money to stay in the business.

Hutchison Whampoa reported a 77 per cent drop in profits for the six months to the end of June due to provisions for declines in its telecommunications investments.

The company said a $3.8 billion profit from Telekom's acquisition of its stake in US telecom operator Voicestream last year was largely offset by a HK$28.1 billion provision for the sharp drop in the value of its 3.47 per cent holding in Vodafone and 4.9 per cent stake in Deutsche Telekom.

Hutchison said its interim net profit was HK$7.2 billion. This compared with HK$31.1 billion last year, when Hutchison made a large profit by swapping its stake in Mannesmann, the German conglomerate, for a stake in Vodafone after Mannesmann was taken over by the UK operator.

Australian regulators approved SingTel's $9 billion takeover of Cable & Wireless Optus, the country’s largest telecom group, amid controversy over Singapore’s acquisition of Australian companies.

Singapore sees Australia as a prime area for business expansion as it

hopes to transform its leading companies into international competitors. SingTel’s deal hopes to create a pan-Asian group ranging from India to Australia with 6.2 million mobile subscribers and 3.7 million fixed line customers.

Investors have doubts as China’s mobile-phone market is plunging on what has been regarded as one of China's promising industries.

Shares in China Mobile Ltd. in Hong Kong, which operates mobile-phone

networks across the country with 59 million subscribers, have plunged 28 percent, and shares in China Unicom Ltd. have dropped 23 percent.

Investors fear changing subscriber demographics will dilute the long-term

profitability for China Mobile and China Unicom.

Sonera, the Finnish telecom company, said it would cut 1,000 jobs from its base of 11,000 staff in the wake of the decline in the sector.

News of the job cuts came on the same day Moody's downgraded Sonera's short-term debt ratings. Sonera is grappling with net debts of about $4.5 billion - largely incurred as the result of its E4 billion investment in European third-generation mobile licenses last year.

Sonera said the job cuts would result in savings of about E50 million to E60 million annually. It would take a one-time charge of E5 million related to the reductions, it added.

Tellabs announced plans to cut 1,000 jobs - 12 per cent of its total - worldwide. The company makes optical networking, next-generation switching and broadband access products for the telecom industry and said the cuts would achieve savings of $120 million annually and help it hit its target of reducing operating expenses by 5 per cent by the fourth quarter. It would take a $50 million one-time restructuring charge against third-quarter earnings.

Sales of hardware for building out fiber-optics networks will produce $10.3 billion in global revenues this year, up 52 percent from last year, a networking and telecommunications research and consulting firm forecast.

San Jose, Calif.-based Infonetics Research said the growth will come as potentially lucrative metro-area markets are linked to established long-haul networks, a process requiring network hardware and components that are both flexible and powerful enough to service increasing amounts of bandwidth.

Infonetics Research cited a 34 percent rise in the second quarter from the first quarter in manufacturers' revenues for "last-mile," customer-premises equipment installed by carriers as a "good measure of the growing metro area market."

Nintendo has postponed the launch of its GameCube console in a move that could give Microsoft a 10-day lead on the Japanese games maker in the battle for the next generation of home consoles.

Nintendo said that it would start selling the GameCube in the US on November 18, nearly two weeks behind schedule, to have more machines in stock at launch. Microsoft has said it intends to launch its Xbox machine on November 8.

The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has decided to participate in the forth-coming bid for the second cellular license in Mauritius through a joint venture with Telecommunication Consultants of India Ltd (TCIL). This would be the first overseas foray of BSNL.

However, the two companies, which have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore international business opportunities in basic and cellular telephony, have dropped plans for bidding for the second cellular license in the Republic of Belarus. BSNL chairman and MD D.P.S. Seth said that the Belarus project would not have made sense and added that the company was looking forward to the Mauritius project. The tenders are expected to be issued shortly with bidding by the end of the year.

The department of telecommunications (DoT) is planning to fix a zero entry fee for the cellular licenses for West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Andaman and Nicobar. The licenses are to be awarded on the basis parameters of financial strength and seriousness. The zero entry fees is being contemplated as there were not takers for these circles in the recent bidding for the fourth cellular operators.

In order to attract private players in these circles, DoT was originally planning to reduce the revenue share part of the license fee, but it was pointed out that any concession on revenue share would have to be extended to all incumbent private operators.

AT&T Corp. plans to work with Liberate Technologies Inc. to develop

Interactive television services. Liberate, reached a multiyear agreement with Headend In The Sky, in Colorado, subsidiary of AT&T Broadband hat delivers programming by satellite to 140 cable operators. The two companies will offer low-cost interactive TV services in the fourth quarter. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Salvador Quintanilla, president of state telephone company Enitel, said a unit of France Telecom had withdrawn from the bidding ahead of the Friday auction of 40 percent of the Nicaraguan company.

Compania de Telecomunicaciones de El Salvador, associated with France Telecom, had pre-qualified to bid for the Enitel stake.

Uruguay's plans to auction spectrum, by Ursec, telecom regulator, for 2G

and 3G mobile telephony in mid-November this year.

Spectrum blocks of 5MHz in the 1800MHz, 1900MHz and 2100MHz bands sold under an auction format that would allow one operator to acquire blocks in all three bands.

Such an auction format would not only allow operators a chance to grab 3G spectrum, but also open the field to those companies who use Europe's GSM

technology.

Telecom equipment maker, Superior Telecom is considering the sale of its wire unit as it tries to reduce its debt. The company has hired Credit Suisse First Boston, the investment bank, as an advisor.

The growth in digital subscriber line technology, which allows ordinary

telephone lines to carry high-speed data and video, as given copper a new lease on life. Superior has total revenues of about $2 billion, has been struggling in debt of $1.2 billion.

A sale would allow Superior to concentrate on its two remaining cable divisions, which supply cable to manufacturers of motors and transformers and make building and industrial wire used in construction.

Intel and Compaq Computer will work together to develop wireless hand-held communications devices and applications used to access and transmit data