Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Ciena Corp., the maker of network equipment for AT&T Inc., said fourth-quarter profit more than doubled as phone companies upgraded their systems to accommodate video transmission.

Net income climbed to $30.4 million, or 30 cents a share, from $13.1 million, or 14 cents, a year earlier, Linthicum, Maryland-based Ciena said today in a Business Wire statement. Revenue increased 35 percent to $216.2 million in the period ended Oct. 31, beating analysts' estimates.

Phone companies are installing faster fiber-optic systems to fend off competition from cable-television companies offering phone service. Ciena's products boost the amount of data carried by fiber lines. The company has also cut manufacturing costs, firing 155 people last year and shuttering plants in the U.S., Canada and China.

Ciena ``faces generally favorable trends,'' analyst Simon Leopold of Morgan Keegan & Co. in New York wrote in a Dec. 11 report. ``Near-term business sounds healthy.'' Leopold estimates the shares will perform as well as the overall market.

Verizon Communications Inc. is spending $23 billion over seven years to install a fiber-optic network; AT&T is spending up to $7 billion over five years on upgrades.

Ciena rose 55 cents to $42.12 on the Nasdaq Stock Market yesterday. The shares had climbed 52 percent this year before today.

(Ciena plans a conference call at 8:30 a.m. New York time. To listen, click http://www.ciena.com)

To contact the reporters on this story: Vivek Shankar in San Francisco at vshankar3@bloomberg.net; Chris Fournier in Montreal at Cfournier3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 13, 2007 07:07 EST