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...want to understand why the European telecom industry is throwing more than $230 billion into upgrading to 3G - shorthand for third generation - look no further than Bon's occasionally dodgy telephone. (Not that the handsets linked up to BT Cellnet or Vodafone are any better.) Though mobiles have come a long way since the days when Gordon Gekko stood on the beach talking to a brick, you still wouldn't make a call on one if a landline was available. And if voice services are skimming the edge of adequacy, that's still more than anyone could...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: It Ain't Heavy... It's My Debt | 4/16/2001 | See Source »

...When Deutsche Telekom, BT and France Telecom were bidding their borrowed billions on licenses last year, it looked like the loans would be a lot easier to pay off than they are today. "We have a plan that will bring our debt down into the range of $27 billion to $36 billion by 2003," says Bon. A nice plan indeed, but mind the yawning $9 billion gap. (A company worth $9 billion on the London Stock Exchange might qualify for the blue-chip FTSE 100 index.) The reason the numbers are so vague is that the debt reduction plan depends...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: It Ain't Heavy... It's My Debt | 4/16/2001 | See Source »

...relatively lucky one. It's initial public offering of Orange earlier this year was a bomb, raising far less cash than the firm had initially hoped. Then again, says Standard and Poor's credit analyst Guy Deslondes, "At least the money is already in the house." Both BT and Deutsche Telekom have talked about similar public offerings of their wireless divisions to raise cash, but just who's going to buy all these new tech stocks...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: It Ain't Heavy... It's My Debt | 4/16/2001 | See Source »

...IPOs and asset sales won't do the job, that leaves some pretty tough choices. Analysts speculate that BT might cut dividends or issue more shares at cut-rate prices in a rights offering. (BT did have some good news last week; it is reportedly close to selling its Yell online yellow pages in a private sale worth as much as $4 billion.) Another possibility is that the large telecom operators' credit ratings might fall into bbb range - the last bracket before junk-bond status - which would make it more expensive for them to finance future investments. Little wonder, perhaps...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: It Ain't Heavy... It's My Debt | 4/16/2001 | See Source »

...That is beginning to happen, although?contrary to expectations?the reports coming in are not that scary. For three years now, University of Arizona entomologist Bruce Tabashnik has been monitoring fields of Bt cotton that farmers have planted in his state. And in this instance at least, he says, "the environmental risks seem minimal, and the benefits seem great." First of all, cotton is self-pollinated rather than wind-pollinated, so that the spread of the Bt gene is of less concern. And because the Bt gene is so effective, he notes, Arizona farmers have reduced their use of chemical...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Grains of Hope | 2/12/2001 | See Source »

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