Lucent Technologies
Inc. Wednesday signed a series of optical networking agreements with
service providers in Europe and Asia worth $90 million.
The service providers include KPN Telecom BV of the Netherlands, Spain’s
Telefonica de Espana, Korea Telecom and the Posts and Telecommunications
Administrations, which operates in several Chinese provinces. The providers
plan to employ Lucent systems to increase network capacity and upgrade
digital networks that carry voice and data.
The Lucent/KPN agreement, worth $65 million, calls for Lucent to supply KPN
with optical networking transmission and network management systems to
increase the capacity of KPN’s “UT Lambdanet” network. The new system is
expected to assist KPN in meeting additional demands for its wholesale and
retail data and voice services.
In addition, Lucent will also augment KPN’s synchronous digital hierarchy
(SDH)-based network in 14 cities, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
the Hague and Utrecht, through the use of Lucent’s WaveStar OLS 80G — a
high capacity dense wavelength division multiplexing system. The system
combines up to 16 wavelengths, or channels, on one fiber, each with a 2.5
gigabit-per-second capacity.
A separate agreement with KPN makes Lucent its provider of full network
integration services. The companies will also develop a new network
operations center, which will be co-located with KPN’s existing center in
Hilversum.
Lucent also signed a $25 million contract to provide the Guangdong Posts
and Telecommunications Administration (PTA) in south China with its
WaveStar OLS 80G DWDM system. The service provider will use WaveStar to
gain bandwidth in its provincial backbone network. Lucent will also offer
WaveStar add/drop multiplexers, digital cross connects and network
management to the JiangSu PTA, so that it can double its existing network
capacity.
In Korea, Lucent was pegged as the exclusive provider of DWDM equipment for
Korea Telecom’s backbone network. The Korea telco plans to use Lucent’s
16-channel WaveStar DWDM system to expand capacity along a national route
between Seoul, Daegu, Daejon, Kwangju and Pusan.
Spain’s Telefonica plans to also use Lucent’s WaveStar OLS 80G DWDM system
to transport data and voice traffic through a network extending about 340
miles (540 kilometers) between Madrid and Seville. It will be the first
optical
networking technology application for Telefonica.
In late October, Lucent entered into a $2 billion, five-year alliance with
WinStar Communications to provide
technology, network design, integration and buildout services and key
communications hardware and software for WinStar’s network.
