Abertis Telecom and Alcatel-Lucent perform live Mobile TV demonstrations at 3GSM

Abertis Telecom and Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that they have set up a joint workgroup to evaluate the potential of Alcatel-Lucent’s “Unlimited Mobile TV” solution for Abertis Telecom’s broadcast TV business. The joint workgroup has started a technical evaluation of Alcatel-Lucent’s proposed system. These analyses will validate certain technical and cost hypotheses associated with the deployment of Alcatel-Lucent’s solution in relation with new business opportunities for Abertis Telecom.

This cooperation follows a straightforward rationale after the acquisition by Abertis of a significant stake in Eutelsat Communications, which invested jointly with SES ASTRA into an S-Band (2.2 GHz) payload onboard Eutelsat’s W2A satellite provided by Alcatel Alenia Space, allowing the delivery of mobile broadcast services over Europe. In this context, Alcatel-Lucent’s “Unlimited Mobile TV” solution, using a high-power satellite complemented by terrestrial repeaters in the S-Band, could represent one of the first examples of synergies for hybrid terrestrial/satellite telecommunication networks and applications, further projecting Abertis’ telecommunications business internationally.

Both companieswill perform together live mobile TV demonstrations during the 3GSM World Congress 2007 in Barcelona from February 12 to 15, 2007. These demonstrations are based on the forthcoming DVB-SH broadcast mobile TV standard. Abertis Telecom, as “The official 3GSM Mobile TV Network Partner”, will provide their support to showcase the forthcoming DVB-SH technology on the Alcatel-Lucent’s booth (Hall 8, Booth# A8 139 & A8 147).

Abertis Telecom stands as the reference TV broadcast network operator in Spain. Its cooperation with Alcatel-Lucent places Abertis Telecom in the best position to assess the potential of the S-band, which is widely available across the continent, for the cost-efficient delivery of broadcast mobile TV in Europe. In Spain, results from several DVB-H trials lead by Abertis Telecom confirmed the users’ acceptance of a high-quality mobile TV service proposition.

The commitment of Alcatel-Lucent’s “Unlimited Mobile TV” solution is to make television available on mobile phones and other devices throughout rural and urban areas, including indoors, with a wide range of programming options and excellent image quality, regardless of the number of viewers simultaneously watching the same program.

Alcatel-Lucent is committed to support service providers in delivering a truly converged TV experience. Alcatel-Lucent has already established a leading position in interactive TV services, and already enables TV, video and music services for more than 110 fixed and mobile service providers around the world.

TelefГіnica selects Alcatel-Lucent for presence-based IMS convergent multimedia services

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that it has been selected by TelefГіnica to deliver and integrate its Presence Server project, enabling users to define easily their reachability: what to do with incoming communications based on the originator, the time of the day, their location, or any other information which could impact their availability. With this project TelefГіnica will be able to add this level of intelligence to all its applications.

Once implemented, communication services such as instant messaging, video mailbox, push-to-talk and push-to-view, click-to-call, or instant collaboration, both in fixed and mobile communications will benefit from this new capabilities based on the information, control and intelligent management of location, presence and availability of users.

Pre-established and configurable levels of presence (available, in-a-meeting, unavailable, reachable only by messaging, for family, community, colleagues, etc.) enable to define and identify priority messages and appropriately redirect incoming phone calls to a colleague, alternate application (voice mail, instant messaging) or device, whether fixed or mobile.

As part of Telefónica’s Presence Project, Alcatel-Lucent will provide the IMS Presence Server, as well as the integration in Telefónica’s core and the maintenance services. This platform enables a virtually instant creation of new attractive services that combine most of the multimedia capabilities offered by service providers.

Alfredo Redondo, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Iberia activities, declared: “This is a strategic project for Alcatel-Lucent as we work with Telefónica to enable new attractive communication services for groups and communities, and to enrich people’s lives by transforming the way the world communicates”.

The new IMS-based services are typical innovative user-centric applications that address end-users demand for blended and personalized communication services, the possibility to share community content and new ways of communicating with friends or family in remote locations, in a seamless fashion, regardless the access or device.

Vodafone selects Alcatel-Lucent for network convergence in Spain

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced it has been selected by Vodafone in Spain to migrate all networking services onto a highly reliable Alcatel-Lucent IP/MPLS based network. The converged network will support broadband data services (GPRS and 3G), signaling and billing traffic, 3G voice traffic as well as future multimedia evolutions. The project, part of a global network transformation to IP, will enable the operator to guarantee end-to-end quality of service, to optimize its network performance and to support new multimedia services.

By evolving its networks to a next-generation infrastructure, Vodafone will support all services on a single network allowing the mobile operator to optimize its investment and operational expenditures, and accelerate the launch of new advanced and convergent services to the market.

“This project provides our network with the reliability and versatility needed to offer our consumer and corporate clients the highest quality and most advanced mobile services on the market,” said Jaime Bustillo, Technology director from Vodafone Spain. “A streamlined network based on the Alcatel-Lucent IP solution allows us to dramatically improve on CAPEX and OPEX while still gaining new revenue opportunities. As well, Alcatel-Lucent is involved in the Vodafone Group’s overall end-to-end IP transformation initiative so from a consistency point of view, the Alcatel-Lucent IP solution is a perfect fit.”

With the Alcatel-Lucent IP/MPLS solution, Vodafone is optimizing the use of bandwidth in its IP core network, that will dynamically be adapted to the bandwidth needs depending on the volume of data and the type of traffic transmitted. Additionally, its intelligent service management capabilities will allow the operator to guarantee reliability and end-to-end quality, and to diversify its offering by establishing differentiated quality of service levels based on the type of client or the use of the network. This is a significant advantage for high bandwidth multimedia services that are very demanding in terms of network performance.

“Users are requesting more innovative and sophisticated �always on’ mobile services with optimal quality and widespread availability which is very demanding in terms of network performance,” said Olivier Picard, President of Alcatel–Lucent’s Europe and South activities. “Offering a service mix of this caliber requires a complete network transformation giving Vodafone the reliability, performance and flexibility of a converged network architecture. Alcatel-Lucent’s unique high availability features in our service routers are ideally geared toward delivering mobile voice services over an IP/MPLS network.”

Alcatel-Lucent is providing Vodafone with an IP/MPLS core and edge network solution based on its next generation Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router and 7710 Service Router along with the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Service Aware Manager.

Vodafone joins more than 160 service providers in over 60 countries, including massive, multi-year IP network and service transformation projects at AT&T, BT, Cable & Wireless, and Telstra. According to Ovum-RHK, Alcatel-Lucent was #2 in the IP/MPLS Edge market segment in Q4 2006, with 19% market share.