Once upon a time, a company called Northern Telecom Inc. was a thriving telecom infrastructure provider of gear for enterprises and service providers and a general major force to be reckoned with. No, this isn’t fiction.

Now, many years later, I reckon, it’s really hard to tell what and who’s left at the long since-renamed Nortel Networks Corp. (NT). Last week they decided to sell their metro Ethernet unit and assets  this after other dizzying decisions  including high-level personnel changes, in 2008 and before.

Some company execs tried to convince me last summer (2007) that Nortel was a major player in IP video services delivery, but I don’t remember receiving any proof. And given the clear-as-day video assets of multiple rivals, the situation just got more muddied.

So what’s the future now? Broadband wireless? Who isn’t planning on some piece of that business? Talk is cheap.

Nortel is still kicking butt in the enterprise telecom products front ... but beyond that longtime bastion...

It used to be second nature to equate Northern Telecom with a series of popular, globally used, telecom product lines on the enterprise side and on the carrier side.

Reasons and excuses aside on the business and marketing front, why did such stunning clarity turn into such stunning confusion (and uncertainty)?

All we can do, apparently, is stay tuned.

Industry watchers are unclear on the latest Nortel business decision. I’m just hoping the company decides to return to real relevance and to being a feared danger to rivals instead of just itself.