Ellacoya Networks nabs former Terra Lycos exec

Former Terra Lycos executive Ron Sege joined Ellacoya Networks on Monday as the networking start-up company's new chief executive.

Sege resigned Friday as president of U.S. operations for Terra Lycos, part of a major senior management shakeup at the Internet company. Terra Lycos is the Internet unit of Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica.

As chief executive, Sege replaces Ellacoya founder Kurt Dobbins who will become the company's chief technology officer. Prior to Terra Lycos, where he served as a close associate of CEO Bob Davis, Sege worked for 3Com and IBM.

Ellacoya Networks, based in Merrimack, N.H., manufactures high-end broadband--or high-speed--network equipment aimed at service providers and communications carriers. The company's gear allows service providers to automatically activate broadband Internet services for customers instead of manual activation, which takes more time because the providers must send a worker to the customer's house or office to activate the service. Demand for high-speed services is high, and many providers have been unable to keep up with the new orders, frustrating many customers who have sometimes waited months for their service to be activated.

The sector Ellacoya is targeting is a crowded one that suffered last year when the capital markets withered, and investors feared carriers would reduce their spending on new hardware. Many upstart gear makers suffered as a result.

But Ellacoya received $52 million in funding in December from a group led by Goldman Sachs, a major investment bank. Ellacoya also got $34 million last May.