Alcatel-Lucent Raises Bar in Optical Transport With First Commercially Available Single Carrier 100G Using 'Next-Generation Coherent' Technology

PARIS, June 9, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris andNYSE: ALU) today continued its innovation in optical networking with the announcement of the first commercially available solution to carry a single carrier 100 gigabit per second (100G) on a wavelength through the innovative use of emerging 'Next-Generation Coherent' technology. With this announcement Alcatel-Lucent is moving the market into the commercial deployment era of 100G next generation coherent technology.

Designed to address the booming bandwidth demands driven by video streaming, web applications, file sharing and high definition movies, next-generation coherent technology is the next step in 100G optical networking, offering unprecedented resilience to optical transmission impairments across the network. This enables 100G rates on each wavelength, supporting for example the transfer of over 100,000 MP3 files in 60 seconds or over 15,000 HDTV channels concurrently streamed live.

Single carrier next-generation coherent technology also offers significantly higher integration and longer transmission reach with significantly lower network complexity, operational costs and power consumption. Next-generation coherent technology also delivers unprecedented compatibility between 100G and lower speed transport infrastructures (such as 10G and 40G).

All of these features make this industry-first solution from Alcatel-Lucent the ideal solution for carriers who want investment-protection by scaling their backbone and metro networks from 10G to 40G to 100G without performance degradation, or an economically viable platform for new optical networking deployments.

"Driven by increasing network bandwidth demands, service providers are looking for future-proof backbone infrastructures that can effectively scale in capacity and reach without requiring expensive network overbuilds," said Dana Cooperson, Vice-President Network Infrastructure at Ovum. "Infrastructure that can adapt easily to include coherent 100G (and 40G) transmission and scale to multi-terabits, such as Alcatel-Lucent has announced as ready for deployment, is essential to enabling tomorrow's high-bandwidth applications. And as one of only a few leaders in both IP/MPLS and optical infrastructure, Alcatel-Lucent is in a good position to advance the close integration of the IP and optical layers to further optimize networks."

Currently available on the 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS), this technology, which leverages innovations from the Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent's research arm and in-house developments in optical networking, is also being deployed on all of Alcatel-Lucent's dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) platforms. This 100G next-generation coherent offering is a key element of Alcatel-Lucent's High Leverage Network(TM) (HLN) architecture to help service providers offer a differentiated service experience to end-users, while minimizing their total cost of ownership.

Underscoring today's launch, the 100G-capable Alcatel-Lucent 1830 PSS has been selected by SOFTBANK TELECOM Corp. to upgrade its backbone network and is being showcased at the ongoing Interop Tokyo 2010 exhibition, where Alcatel-Lucent is partnering with SOFTBANK TELECOM to provide the network infrastructure carrying live data traffic associated with the event. Additionally, Alcatel-Lucent's next-generation coherent technology has already been successfully tested with Tier-1 customers worldwide, including Telefonica.

"With the availability today of our 100G DWDM solution, Alcatel-Lucent further evolves and differentiates its optical networking proposition to deliver new value and revenue protection to its customers," said James Watt, head of Alcatel-Lucent's Optics activities. "Our in-house innovation capabilities and strategy execution are a new proof of our commitment to partner with service providers for the development of new sustainable business models. This is where bandwidth growth is achieved while minimizing their total cost of ownership, including energy and space savings."

For more information visit: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/100g

Web Press Conference details

The web conference will take place June 9, 2009 at 7AM PST/ 10AM EST / 4PM CET and will be hosted by Sam Bucci, VP Terrestrial Portfolio Management, Optics and Alberto Valsecchi, VP Marketing, Optics.

    To access the session please use the following information:
    Dial-in numbers:
    N. America toll free: 866-578-5771
    International toll: 617-213-8055
    Participant passcode: 47364386

WEBCAST URL: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?p=irol-eventDetails&c=94709& eventID=3121713

Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation.

Advance questions or follow-up questions can be sent to [email protected] and [email protected] or referencing the web press conference.

(Due to the length of the above URL, it may be necessary to copy and paste this hyperlink into your Internet browser's URL address field. Remove the space if one exists.)

About Alcatel-Lucent's High Leverage Network(TM) (http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/hln)

The Alcatel-Lucent High Leverage Network(TM) (HLN) architecture addresses the dual challenges of simultaneously scaling and managing network capacity to meet increasing bandwidth demand while delivering differentiated, revenue generating services. It achieves this by delivering scalable bandwidth at the lowest cost per bit and by embedding intelligence in the network to enable dynamic service creation and delivery. The foundation for the Alcatel-Lucent Application Enablement (http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/application_enablement) vision, the HLN architecture collapses multiple complex costly overlay networks into a simpler, fully optimized network that leverages technical innovations and embraces existing environments.

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris andNYSE: ALU) is the trusted transformation partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries such as defence, energy, healthcare, transportation, and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP and optics technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 15.2 billion in 2009 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.

SOURCE Alcatel-Lucent