Nortel Networks Corp. may be bankrupt but that doesn't mean it has no value. Take, for instance, the company's Metro Ethernet Networks unit that Ciena Corp. is looking to buy for more than US$500 million. Metro Ethernet Networks, which generated US$1.36 billion in revenue for Nortel in 2008, has deployed an estimated 430,000 optical nodes to customers in 65 countries. Additionally, the Dell'Oro Group research firm found that Nortel topped its competitors in shipments of 40 Gbps equipment and that it had an estimated 32per cent market share of 40 Gbps equipment at the end of 2008. On top of all this, Nortel has a strategic partnership with AT&T Inc., meaning that anyone who purchases the Metro Ethernet Networks will have access to the second-largest carrier in the United States. "Nortel is very strong in terms of Layer 1 transport technology for 40G and 100G networking," says Andrew Schmitt, an analyst at Infonetics Research.