Lucent Technologies Signs Total US$28 Million Fiber Optic Cable Contracts in Xinjiang and Qingdao, China

Business Wire, April 23, 2001

Business/Hi-Tech Editors

BEIJING, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2001

Lucent Technologies (LU) has announced that Lucent Technologies Fiber Optic Cable Co. Ltd., Beijing (BFOC), one of its joint ventures in China, has signed fiber optic cable contracts with Xinjiang Mobile, Xinjiang PTA and Qingdao PTB with a combined worth of $28 million.

These strategic contracts demonstrate Lucent's leading position in China's fiber cable market. "China is one of the world's fastest-growing communications markets, and Lucent is pleased to be working with these important customers to expand their networks," said Bernard Choo, president of BFOC. "Scientists from Bell Labs, Lucent's R&D arm, invented the concept of optical fibers optimized for specific network types like long distance and metropolitan networks. These customers - as well as their end users - will be positioned to gain the most value from their networks by using Lucent's TrueWave(R) and AllWave(TM) fiber cable products."

Under the US$13M contract in Xinjiang, BFOC will provide 2500km TrueWave RS fiberoptic cable for Xinjiang's provincial long haul backbone network. The project starts installation this month and the fiber network is expected to be operational in October 2001.

Xinjiang Mobile, as another part of that investment, will be installing Lucent fiber into its wireless network. Xinjiang Mobile's need for fiber optic cable is due to the fact that the growth of wireless technology also drives the growth of fiber cable used to connect wireless cell sites and land-based networks. Fiber cable helps provide large call capacity for cell sites to meet the rapid growth in cellular phones.

Lucent's TrueWave RS single-mode optical fiber being installed in Xinjiang was the industry's first nonzero-dispersion fiber (NZDF) optimized for long distance communications service. TrueWave RS was developed by Lucent's Bell Labs - which has played a pivotal role in inventing and perfecting key communications technologies such as transistors, lasers and fiber optics - to meet long-distance service providers' fast growing demands for increased bandwidth. In addition, TrueWave is fully capable of supporting rapidly-advancing optical transmission technologies, particularly in the application of dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), a capability which dramatically increases capacity through the simultaneous transmission of different wavelengths (colors) of light.

Under the contract with Qingdao PTB, BFOC will provide more than 100,000km of AllWave optical fiber to enhance Qingdao PTB's broadband metro network services.

"This contract is Lucent's largest AllWave win to date in China, and demonstrates the broad acceptance of Lucent's AllWave metropolitan fiber solution by Chinese network service operators," Choo said. "This sale signals the potential AllWave has to become a leading industry standard in China for metro network applications. In addition, the contract underscores Lucent's leadership position in application-specific fiber, both worldwide and in China."

The Qingdao PTB project is expected to be operational for public service this July.

Lucent's AllWave single-mode optical fiber, also pioneered by Bell Labs scientists, is the industry's first fiber designed for use across the entire wavelength spectrum. AllWave fiber also provides an additional 50 percent capacity as a result of a breakthrough patented manufacturing process that eliminates spectrum-blocking water in the 1400 nm range trapped in most optical fibers during manufacturing. AllWave can also handle simultaneous video, data and voice traffic on a single fiber in both digital and analog formats.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and delivers the systems, software and services for next-generation communications networks for service providers and enterprises. Backed by the research and development of Bell Labs, Lucent focuses on high-growth areas such as broadband and mobile Internet infrastructure; communications software; Web-based enterprise solutions that link private and public networks; and professional network design and consulting services. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at http://www.lucent.com.

Lucent Technologies (China) Co., Ltd. has seven regional offices, eight joint ventures, three wholly owned companies and eight R&D centers, with approximately 4,800 employees in China. Lucent China and its joint ventures manufacture a full range of telecommunications systems to serve the China market.