NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Troubled telecom equipment maker Lucent Technologies Tuesday reported unexpectedly poor results in its fiscal third quarter.

The company lost 16 cents a share excluding special items. Including a non-cash charge for deferred tax assets the company lost $6.4 billion, or $1.86 a share, from operations excluding other special items in the quarter. An official with earnings tracker First Call could not say whether analysts would include or exclude the charge for purposes of comparison to their estimates. The consensus forecast was for a loss of 14 cents a share in the period. The company lost $1.3 billion, or 39 cents a share, a year earlier on that basis.

Including special items, the company reported a net loss of $7.9 billion, or $2.31 a share, in the quarter, wider than the net loss of $3.2 billion, or 95 cents a share, in the year-earlier period.

Revenue in the period dropped 45 percent to $2.9 billion from $5.4 billion a year earlier, which also missed the First Call forecast of $3.1 billion.

The company said due to market uncertainty, it could not give a forecast for fourth-quarter results, but that it still hopes to return to profitability in fiscal 2003. The company said it plans another 7,000 job cuts, or about 13 percent of its remaining staff of 53,000 worldwide, with most of the cuts coming by the end of the calendar year. The company said it is considering further restructuring to reduce the level of revenue needed to break-even.

Shares of Lucent (LU: Research, Estimates) gained 4 cents to $2.14 in pre-market trading on Instinet Tuesday following the report after gaining 10 cents in regular-trading Monday.