Lucent poised for $5.7bn Chromatis Networks buy

Lucent Technologies is poised to buy optical equipment provider Chromatis Networks for $5.7bn in an all-stock deal, according to reports.

Chromatis is a privately held company that gained second round funding of $38m late last year. It specialises in providing voice and data communications equipment for city and metropolitan areas. Their core products combine packet, cell, and TDM (time-division multiplexing) switching that it claims eliminates bandwidth and services gap in metropolitan area networks.

Lucent is in strong competition with Cisco Systems and Nortel to supply telecoms and ISPs - and the deal would boost its optical networking product portfolio.

Both companies have refused to comment. However, Lucent's share price had risen two points by the end of Tuesday's trading on the back of the speculation.