The company is also working on equipment to serve pure fiber systems, which would make DSL obsolete.

FORBES: Above the fray

Gartner sees the wireless corporate network market growing at a compound annual rate of 18.4% from 2011 to 2016, and the market for high-speed fiber-optic Internet-access equipment growing at a compound annual rate of 12.1% from 2010 to 2014.

WSJ: Funds to Fine-Tune Technology Exposure

With the blessing of El Paso Chairman William Wise , Jenkins plans to buy fiber-optic equipment, metropolitan communications loops and even "telco hotels" stuffed with switches that allow customers to select among many competing carriers.

FORBES: Switch Hitter

Such techniques have pushed the cost of carrying traffic on fiber down to about 1% of what it would cost on all-electronic equipment, and it will keep falling.

FORBES: Hooked on photonics