Global Crossing and Northeast Optic Networks, two fiber-optic network companies, offer investors a chance to invest in the white-hot business of fiber optics.
Other Bets includes broadband business Google Fiber, home automation products Nest, self-driving cars as well as X, the company's research facility that works on "moon shot" ventures.
Glass and cookware maker Corning has shifted 50% of its business into fiber optics.
Not surprisingly, some are already selling outsourcing services, mostly in the telecommunications services business where fiber cables made a natural fit to power lines.
JDS and SDL are in the business of fiber-optics -- the use of light, rather than electrons, to carry information.
Banks that made $2.65 billion in unsecured loans to WorldCom are testing interest in WorldCom's consumer, business and fiber-optic networks.
From a tiny defense business, the fiber-optic business has grown into one of the three largest undersea cable businesses in the world (the others being France's Alcatel and Japan's KDD) with the acquisition last summer of AT&T's submarine systems division.
It is simultaneously trying to cut $2 billion in costs, reduce headcount by 10,000, sell its optical fiber business, launch an IPO for its chip business, reduce capital spending and meet guarantees for the $4.5 billion in loans it recently secured.
The latest cuts will bring its work force to 35,000 from a peak of 153,000 three years ago; about 50,000 of the jobs eliminated came through spinoffs of two Lucent businesses, Avaya and Agere, and the sale of its optical fiber business.
"Having rid itself of the fiber business, Cincinnati Bell now consists of a fairly stable fixed-line business," Deutsche Bank said.
