Li's Latest Salvage Job?

Bandwidth, the capacity of a fiber-optic line to transmit data from one place to another, was considered to be a commodity for which demand was virtually limitless. But as investors in U.S.-based telecommunications company Global Crossing have learned, "endless demand" turned out to be another New Economy nostrum. Anticipating a data tsunami that never came, Global Crossing built a $10 billion, 160,000-km fiber-optic network spanning two oceans and four continents. Last week, the New York Stock Exchange-listed company filed for U.S. bankruptcy court protection in order to restructure its $12.3 billion debt.

But there's at least one person...