Lucent Technologies Signs Agreement to Build Advanced Optical Network for Polkomtel

Business Wire, Dec 2, 2002

Business Editors

WARSAW, Poland & HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 2, 2002

Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) signed a framework agreement with Polkomtel S.A., the operator of the Plus GSM mobile network in Poland and member of the Vodafone group, to build an advanced nationwide optical network.

This new network will employ dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology as well as synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) technology and will include the newest member of Lucent's optical portfolio, the Metropolis(R) ADM MultiService Mux, launched at the ITU World Telecom Asia conference.

The national DWDM backbone will be based on Lucent's Metropolis(R) Enhanced Optical Networking (EON) system. As part of the agreement, Polkomtel has the option to purchase other products and services from Lucent's DWDM and SDH portfolio, both for long-haul and metro applications, including the LambdaUnite(TM) MultiService Switch and passive WDM equipment.

Lucent Worldwide Services will provide installation, enhanced program management, network design services, technical support and maintenance of the whole Lucent-installed equipment base in Polkomtel's network.

The network, when constructed, will be able to accommodate virtually all of the traffic Polkomtel currently carries on its network and will enable the company to offer advanced next-generation voice and data services to its subscribers.

"We are delighted that Polkomtel selected us to construct its DWDM backbone," said Pawel Karlowski, Lucent Technologies Mobility Director for Central and Eastern Europe. "We have been delivering our SDH solutions for Polkomtel's transmission network for five years now and this contract demonstrates the customer values the experience we can bring to building complex networks and the solutions we are able to develop for them."

According to Dell'Oro Group's report, Lucent Technologies has regained market leadership in the SONET/SDH optical equipment market. Lucent captured the largest market share - 16.1 percent - of the $1.04 billion SONET/SDH optical equipment market during the third quarter of 2002. SONET/SDH equipment accounted for 67 percent of the total optical equipment market in the third quarter. According to the report, Lucent also increased its total optical equipment market share from the previous quarter.

Lucent Solutions

Metropolis(R) EON, a 32-channel DWDM system, provides 320 gigabits per second (Gb/s) capacity to service providers as well as new revenue-generating high-speed services. It supports a wide range of rates from 16 megabits per second (Mb/s) to speeds of 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s) per wavelength, the latter of which is the equivalent of transmitting a 2 million-page document every second. Metropolis(R) EON's ring architecture also offers improved service reliability and provides business continuity services for backups and disaster recovery by having multiple data centers online and synchronized.

Metropolis(R) ADM serves as an integrated Ethernet over SDH metro access multiplexer, enabling service providers to migrate from existing time-division multiplexed (TDM) networks to multiservice networks. The product is able to drop E1 directly from STM-64 or STM-16 on a single, compact platform that is both flexible and scalable, and it can be configured for use in both the metro core and metro access spaces. Adding data services to optical networks increases revenue potential for customers and helps them offer a wide variety of new Ethernet services. Metropolis(R) ADM's low power consumption and small footprint also help carriers save money.

LambdaUnite(TM) MSS provides a bridge between data-intense metro networks and high-speed optical core networks. Developed by Bell Labs, the system brings together switching capacity, functionality, density and flexibility into one box with an extremely small footprint. The product supports both Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), enables service providers to seamlessly upgrade their networks to 40G gigabits per second (Gb/s) and allows them to deliver new value-added services such as gigabit ethernet.

About Polkomtel S.A.

Polkomtel S.A. is the operator of Plus GSM 900/1800 digital mobile network. Its shareholders are: Vodafone Americas Asia Inc. (US), TeleDenmark A/S (Denmark), Polski Koncern Naftowy ORLEN S.A. and KGHM Polska Miedz S.A., holding 19.61% shares each and Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne with 16.05 % share, Weglokoks S.A. (4%), Tel-Energo S.A. (1.01%), TelBank (0.5%).

Plus GSM network operated by Polkomtel S.A. has been operational since October 1st, 1996. Today it provides services to over 4.3 million users and is available to 99% of Poland's population inhabiting over 98% of the country's territory. As a result of multiple roaming agreements Plus GSM subscribers can use their telephones in 118 countries on six continents, in the networks of 238 mobile service providers. Plus GSM offers advanced services, such as GPRS packet data transmission, HSCSD high-speed data transmission (Polkomtel is the only operator in Poland offering this serivce), intelligent network platform based services, as well as MMS multimedia message services. More on Polkomtel S.A. at http://www.plusgsm.pl.