Lucent Technologies Wins Optical, Data Network Contracts Valued At $US145 Million From Saudi Telecom

Cambridge Telcom Report, March 13, 2000

Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU) Thursday announced that it has won two contracts from Saudi Telecom Co (STC), the Middle East's largest service provider, to expand its optical transmission and data networks to meet customers' Internet and voice network needs.

The total value of the two contracts is US$145 million (approximately Saudi Riyal 544 million). "We are proud to have been selected by the Saudi Telecom for these projects," said John Heindel, president of Lucent Saudi Arabia. "They envision the needs of tomorrow's networks while meeting the demands of today's."

In one contract valued at US$110 million (approximately Saudi Riyal 413 million) Lucent will provide its WaveStar OLS 80G and WaveStar ADM 16/1 optical networking systems to increase STC's transmission and long distance capacity. This expansion is designed to respond to the growth in Internet traffic, the demand for rapidly growing GSM wireless traffic, and the need for additional land lines.

In another contract valued at US$35 million (approximately Saudi Riyal 133 million), Lucent will also provide its Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), remote access and digital subscriber line (DSL) equipment, enabling STC to more than double its existing Internet capacity and offer DSL services to its customers.

Lucent's WaveStar OLS 80G uses a technique known as dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) to simultaneously transmit 16 distinct information streams across the same fiber strand. This enables carriers to increase network capacity, without incurring the cost of laying new fiber.

For the second contract, Lucent will provide the market-leading GX 550 Smart Core ATM switches and CBX 500 and B-STDX 9000 Multiservice Wide Area Network (WAN) switches. These offer the highest performance, scalability, and capacity for building next generation networks. In addition, Lucent will supply its PacketStar Access Concentrators, which when combined with the GX 550 and CBX 500 switches, provide the industry's most comprehensive integrated ATM access and switching solution.

Lucent will also provide Saudi Telecom with the MAX TNT carrier-class WAN access switch for remote access at 28 locations. Lucent's NavisFamily network management systems will enable world-class monitoring and provisioning of the ATM and remote access systems. In addition, Lucent will install xDSL Broadband Access Interface equipment throughout the Kingdom--a first for Saudi Arabia.

Lucent Technologies has a workforce of about 3,100 in Saudi Arabia composed of 760 Saudi nationals as well as expatriates from 41 nations, and has offices in the major Saudi cities of Riyadh, Jeddah and Al Khobar.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronic components. Bell Labs is the research and development arm for the company.

Lucent provides next-generation network solutions to New Carriers, ISPs and PTTs world-wide - including 90% of the largest PTTs in Europe and 85 of the 100 largest ISPs world-wide. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit the company's web site at http://www.lucent.com.