News reports across the wire are repeating comments by a Nokia Siemens Network (NSN) official who said the company might bid on other Nortel assets as they become available.  Meanwhile, vulture capital firm MaitlinPatterson Global Advisors is proportedly building a “dream team” of executives to advise on reorganizing and running Nortel if it wins its bid for the firm.

The Financial Times reports MaitlinPatterson’s team includes former Nortel North American President  Dion Joannou, Richard Burns, a former president of AT&T’s wireless network, Richard Piasentin, a former group vice-president of sales for Nortel, Tony Pirih, former head of Nortel’s R&D operations, and Chris Smith, former executive vice-president in charge of Alltel’s network operations.

Meanwhile, Seeking Alpha comments on NSN North American president Sue Spradley standing center stage touting why her company is the best one to acquire Nortel’s CDMA and LTE parts. Speaking in Toronto yesterday, Spradley indicated that NSN could put more money on the table for the pieces if it’s needed to stay in the bid process; doing so would make it the #2 network supplier in North America, ahead of Ericsson.

Once NSN gets the CDMA and LTE pieces, it will look at other Nortel assets as they come to market and if it sees a good price for them, it’ll grab them.

There’s some interesting micro and macro factors illustrated in these comments.  Micro: NSN is not backing down for what it wants and it will be interesting to see if it and MaitlinPatterson cut a deal either before bidding closes or, if Maitlin ends up with all of Nortel, afterward.   And if you’re looking for a good signal of an economic leveling, the potential for NSN and MaitlinPatterson to duke it over Nortel’s assets could qualify.