When you're in dire straits, you do what you have to do.

There seems to be no end to the bad news, and that Corning's balance sheet, which looked so solid a year ago, is now shaky.

Needing cash, Corning announced "a glorified common stock offering" that has sent its shares down 50% in just three days.

Corning's problem is that there is no sign when its business will revive.

Lucent Technologies will supply KT (formerly Korea Telecom) with an advanced optical system that will allow KT to quadruple capacity of its existing networks. This marks the first major introduction of 10-gigabit technology to South Korea's largest communications service provider's long-distance transmission networks.

JDS Uniphase, the world's largest supplier of components and modules that boost the speed and capacity of optical networks, will sell its Cronos MEMS business and assets acquired for $565 million two years ago. The selling price? $8.5 million dollars.

Infected by the same malaise that has sickened the entire telecom sector, Verizon posted a $2.12B net loss on Wednesday, after being hit with an earnings charge, weak demand and tough competition. All this, despite cutting more than a billion dollars in CAPEX this year.

The company also cut its earnings and revenue outlook for the year.

EarthLink lost $40 million in the second quarter as subscriber growth for high-speed Internet access was canceled out by a nearly 7% loss of dial-up customers.

"This is a terrible time to try and sell a wireless asset, but [Deutsche Telekom] is under quite a bit of pressure. Nobody got rid of Sommer to just leave things the way they were."

Morningstar analyst: "VoiceStream is gone. Without question, you cannot be the sixth player. It's bad enough being third, fourth, or fifth."

Qwest Communications International, the dominant provider of local telephone service in 14 Western states, said last night that it had incorrectly accounted for more than $1.1 billion of transactions from 1999 to 2001 in the latest revelation of accounting irregularities at a telecommunications company.

Qwest also said that its accounting problems might extend to areas beyond the sale of fiber optic capacity, where most scrutiny had been focused until recently.

Qwest CEO Notebaert: "We will not be the next shoe to drop." ... "I don't feel confident making any predictions about [telecom industry] recovery."

Qwest's ability to evade a bankruptcy filing depends to some degree on its ability to secure additional financing from its banks. Qwest CFO, on compliance with loan requirements: "We don't know what the second quarter is going to look like."

Qwest shares are down 94% in the last year. ... Serious doubts exist over whether [bandwidth swapping] deals were appropriate in any way [regardless of the accounting method employed].

Several large European telecommunications companies announced plans today to retrench from global ambitions nursed during the stock market boom, by writing down the value of assets, agreeing to suspend unprofitable operations and selling some units.

In a striking reversal of a bold yet improbable plan to build a wireless network across Europe, the Spanish company Telefonica said it would "freeze" mobile operations in Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland.

Telefonica and Sonera will each make a US$3.98B write-down on the wireless licenses that will now go unused. Telefonica is playing the executive shuffle in an attempt to "look busy!" while the investors are watching.

France Telecom is trying to reduce its 60+B euros of debt by selling off a stake in its broadcasting division. But there are dangers. BT did this and now struggles to find growth. For the quarter ended June 30, BT earnings fell to 275M euros, from 4.4B euros in the period last year. Revenue fell 17%.

[Various French and Spanish telecoms are also bleeding cash in Latin America and are struggling to find a way out of the economic disasters underway there.]

Genuity, the last of the original Big Three Internet carriers, may be about to go the way of its competitors -- into bankruptcy.

Stock down 89% yesterday, to 29 cents. Now in default on $3B in loans. Bankruptcy could be only months away. Firm suddenly draws $723M in cash on existing credit lines. Deutsche Bank, refusing to participate, brings federal lawsuit against Genuity to halt the transaction.

As a handful of telecommunications companies begin to trickle out of bankruptcy protection, analysts fear their financial reorganizations could have unintended consequences that exacerbate the industrywide meltdown.

The spate of bankruptcy filings so far is doing little to solve the industry's underlying problem.

So far, only a tiny fraction of telecommunications companies have survived bankruptcy protection. But those that have are going to make their presence known.

Meta Group: "There's a theory that ... bankruptcy [is] a healthy move and a way to wipe away the debt. But the probability of that happening is very low."