Bankrupt telecom equipment company Nortel Networks Corp. says its fourth-quarter loss widened as the weak economy led customers to lower or defer spending.

Toronto-based Nortel on Monday reported a loss of $2.14 billion, or $4.28 per share, compared with a loss of $844 million, or $1.70 per share, a year ago.

Nortel said its fourth-quarter loss included a $1.24 billion non-cash writedown of its goodwill and a $951 million non-cash charge to raise the valuation allowance against deferred tax assets.

When excluding one-time items such as these, Nortel earned 36 cents per share.

Revenue fell 15 percent to $2.72 billion from $3.2 billion in the same quarter in 2007. Carrier networks revenue fell 8 percent to $1.23 billion due to customers lowering their spending and the impact of foreign exchange.

The company said that its deferred revenue balances fell $323 million in the quarter.

For the full year, Nortel reported a loss of $5.8 billion, or $11.64

per share, compared with a loss of $957 million, or $1.98 per share, in 2007. Revenue slid 5 percent to $10.42 billion from $10.95 billion.

Nortel declined to give guidance, citing limited visibility, the continuing uncertainty of the economy and its current work to restructure the company in the wake of its Jan. 14 filing for creditor protection in Canada and the United States.

The company said that starting with its current quarter it will report financial results under a new operating model that includes four business segments, each of which will include related results that used to be reported through its global services segment. The business segments are: Carrier networks, enterprise solutions, metro ethernet and the LG-Nortel joint venture.

Nortel employs more than 25,000 society around the world. During the 1990s telecom and World Wide Web boom, Nortel had more than 95,000 employees. At one point in 2000 it accounted for one-third of…

Original post by dhiram