Vodafone today announces that it has agreed to sell its 25% interest in Proximus to Belgacom for a consideration of EUR 2.0 billion in cash. Belgacom already owns 75% of Proximus which is the leading mobile operator in Belgium.

The consideration implies an Enterprise Value to EBITDA(1) multiple of 7.2x for the financial year ending 31 March 2007. Net cash proceeds to Vodafone are anticipated to be EUR 2.0 billion (GBP 1.4 billion).

Vodafone and Proximus have also signed a revised long-term Partner Network Agreement in Belgium with an initial five year term. This will enable Proximus and Vodafone customers to continue to benefit from Vodafone’s global products and services such as Vodafone live!, Vodafone Mobile Connect Card, Blackberry from Vodafone and international roaming services, including preferred roaming arrangements. In addition, the two companies will continue to co-operate in serving international corporate customers.

Commenting on the transaction, Arun Sarin, Chief Executive of Vodafone, said:
“We have enjoyed a long and successful relationship with Belgacom, and together have built the leading mobile operator in Belgium. We do not, however, see ourselves as the most appropriate long-term holder of this minority stake. In line with our strategy of actively managing our portfolio and maximising returns, we have achieved an attractive price with this sale. I am also pleased that our customers will continue to benefit from our products and services in Belgium through a renewed long-term Partner Network Agreement with Proximus.”

The sale is subject to certain regulatory approvals and is expected to close before 31st December 2006. The sale proceeds will be used to reduce Vodafone’s net indebtedness.

This transaction does not materially affect Vodafone’s proportionate mobile revenue and EBITDA outlook for the financial year ending 31 March 2007. However, Vodafone will no longer receive anticipated dividend income from Proximus of approximately GBP 150m this year and there will be a corresponding reduction in the Group’s free cash flow outlook for the financial year ending 31 March 2007.

As a result of the transaction, Vodafone currently anticipates recording a gain on disposal of approximately GBP 0.45 billion in its results for the year ending 31 March 2007 and will cease recording its share of the result of its 25% interest in Proximus from the date of closing of the sale.

Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) today announced that Belgacom, the incumbent operator in Belgium, has selected Alcatel’s IP solution for traffic aggregation to support the mass roll-out of triple play services throughout the country.

Under the terms of this contract, Alcatel will provide the equipment and network & service management for a nationwide network that will deliver high quality voice, data and video services to the Belgian residential customers.

Last year, Belgacom selected Alcatel’s IP portfolio as the foundation for its nationwide BiLANВ© Ethernet VPN service, offering advanced Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) and IP-VPN services to businesses. Now, with plans to make triple play available to its entire residential subscriber base, Belgacom has again selected Alcatel’s IP portfolio to deliver bundled triple play services including high-speed Internet, digital TV services and voice over IP.

“Maintaining leadership requires an evolution of the network to prepare it for advanced applications such as triple play that have far much more stringent requirements,”said Philippe Ribonnet, Head of Network and IT Division at Belgacom. “An in-depth evaluation of Alcatel’s IP technology has demonstrated its strengths and robustness and the company’s commitment to a successful service roll-out from start to finish. Extending the network with this proven Alcatel solution will give us the scalability, reliability and end-to-end service levels that will satisfy our requirements for triple play.”

“Offering differentiated services is key to staying ahead of the competition,”said Basil Alwan, President of Alcatel’s IP activities. “Alcatel’s extensive experience in deploying triple play solutions combined with proven, high performance and feature-rich technology will help Belgacom introduce those services faster to preserve its competitive edge. Service providers worldwide as an integral component of their next-generation service edge have selected our IP portfolio. This selection by Belgacom illustrates a key benefit of Alcatel’s IP portfolio, which is the ability to bring even greater operational savings by converging business and consumer services on a single IP/MPLS network.”

The Alcatel IP portfolio has key features – including high-availability, quality of service, and scalability – that make it the only solution available today that can reliably deliver triple play consumer and business services concurrently on the same platform. For the triple play roll out, Belgacom selected the 7750 Service Router (SR), 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS) and 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM)

Worldwide, Alcatel’s IP portfolio has been selected by more than 100 service providers, including massive, multi-year IP network and service transformation projects at AT&T, BT, TeliaSonera and China Telecom. In the fourth quarter of 2005, Alcatel held second place worldwide for IP edge aggregation with a market share of 25.8 percent, according to Synergy Research Group. Alcatel is involved in more than 35 triple play projects and another 40 network transformation projects worldwide. IPTV services are expected to reach over 70 million subscribers by 2010.

Belgian mobile operator Proximus has launched the first commercial High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network in the country. With the Nokia HSDPA solution, Proximus will be able to operate its network more cost-efficiently and offer its customers data services at speeds of up to five times faster than current 3G speeds.

“We at Proximus take pride in offering our customers the best quality services, so we are pleased to be the first operator in Belgium to upgrade our 3G network with HSDPA technology,” says Laurent Claus, Executive Vice President, Proximus. “Nokia’s rapid rollout capability and support are extremely valuable for us in offering 3G broadband HSDPA to our customers.”

“We are delighted that Nokia’s solutions and support helped Proximus to launch the first commercial HSDPA in Belgium,” says Patrick Fichou, Account Director, Networks, Nokia. “The Nokia HSDPA allows Proximus to introduce 3G broadband to their existing and new customers thus enhancing subscriber loyalty and generating revenue.”

Nokia is Proximus’ sole GSM and WCDMA 3G radio network supplier. Nokia also supplies GPRS and 3G packet core network equipment to the operator. Nokia has supplied mobile networks to Proximus since 1996 and was selected as its 3G supplier in 2001.

In WCDMA 3G, Nokia has 60 customers to date. Nokia’s high-performing HSDPA is a simple software upgrade to Nokia WCDMA networks, thus enabling cost-effective and fast rollout. Nokia is a leader in the HSDPA market, with over 20 contracts globally. Several network operators have already opened their HSDPA networks with the Nokia solution.