Nokia and Siemens continue to weigh options for NSN

The ongoing saga about what Nokia and Siemens should do with its troubled Nokia Siemens Networks venture continues to unfold with reports that the two vendors are again considering selling the company to a number of private-equity firms that have emerged as potential suitors for the company.

The Wall Street Journal, citing people close to the matter said that the two companies would like to selling a 51 percent stake in the venture that could be worth about $2 billion.

However, neither Nokia nor Siemens are actually talking with possible buyers of the venture.

Initially, the purpose of the joint venture was to get a large slice of the U.S. wireless and wireline markets, it only generates 6 percent of its revenue from North American service providers, while competitor Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) claims 36 percent of its revenues in the region.

And while NSN tried to revamp its North American wireline power by purchasing Nortel's Metro Ethernet Network (MEN) division, it ultimately lost out to Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN), a division that currently serves large carriers like AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ).    

For more:
- Wall Street Journal has this article

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