UBS Financial upgraded Nortel Networks (NT

) to buy from neutral.

Analyst Nikos Theodosopoulos says he expects Nortel's share in UMTS to climb close to 15%, vs. about an 8% share in GSM. He says recent contract wins reinforces this view. Also, he thinks Nortel could benefit from a potential EVDO deployment at Verizon. He believes the recent surge in deployment of voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) services favors Nortel.

Theodosopoulos raised the 2004 earnings per share estimate to 13 cents and upped the revenue estimate to $10 billion. He raised the 2005 earnings per share estimate to 24 cents on $10.9 billion in revenue. He says the increase reflects higher estimates for wireless and wireline businesses, and is based partially on an improved outlook for the third quarter. Theodosopoulos also raised the $5 target to $6.