For people who are ready to move up to a full-featured mobile phone that includes everything needed to stay organized, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) has announced the availability of the Palm(R) Treo(TM) 680 smartphone, a GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band world phone, on Rogers Wireless, Canada’s largest integrated wireless voice and data network.

Customers will find the Treo 680 smartphone easy to use, slim and compact, yet packed full of features beyond its stellar phone capability, such as email, web browsing, messaging, multimedia, calendar, contacts and more. Palm believes this product will appeal to price-sensitive feature-phone owners who want a more capable mobile-computing device.

“The Treo 680 is the smartphone for everyone. It’s small, sleek, fast and is available in four fun colors on the Palm Canada online store,” said Michael Moskowitz, vice president, Americas International, Palm, Inc. “It’s a great phone design for messaging and email, and provides users easy and fast access to the Internet and to their favorite music and pictures. The Treo 680 makes it easy for people to balance their business and personal lives while on the go.”

“As Canada’s leading wireless carrier, operating on Canada’s only GSM network, we are proud to offer our customers leading-edge mobile devices like the Palm Treo 680. Email availability on a stylish, thin form factor will make the Treo 680 particularly appealing to small and medium-size businesses by enabling them to save time by having access to outstanding mobile innovation and email connectivity,” said John Boynton, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Rogers Wireless.

With the introduction of the Palm OS(R) based Treo 680 smartphone, Palm is targeting new users in the rapidly growing smartphone and feature-phone markets. Market research firm In-Stat, estimates that 25 per cent of all wireless handsets worldwide will be smartphones by 2011. Research conducted by Palm suggests a substantial population of feature-phone users have not purchased smartphones, fearing they were too expensive and too difficult to use. The Treo 680 will offer an affordable, simple and fun way to get started and stay connected.

New Smart Device Offers Cingular Consumer and Business Customers a Slim and Sleek Device Packed Full of Functionality

Cingular Wireless and Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) today introduced the new Palm(R) Treo(TM) 680 smart device, whose brand-new look, broad range of features and economical price will appeal to both consumers and business customers — just in time for the holidays. The Treo 680 quad-band world phone on the Palm OS(R) platform — which is available beginning Friday, Nov. 24, for as low as $199.99 — boasts Palm’s hallmark ease of use to keep any user productive, all with a slim and compact feel.

Cingular business and consumer customers will be able to better balance their personal and business lives, as the all-in-one Treo 680 seamlessly combines a compact, full-featured mobile phone with so much more, all at a competitive price. Users can do even more with their phone, from accessing email and editing documents at the airport to organizing photos and music while waiting for a friend at the coffee shop.

Market research firm In-Stat estimates that 25 percent of all wireless handsets worldwide will be PDAs and smartphones by 2011, which makes the Treo 680 the ideal phone both for feature-phone upgraders and new users.

The Palm Treo 680 is easy to use and affordable because of the multiple innovations it encompasses:

– A new internal antenna enables a sleeker design;

– An improved phone application on the Treo 680 smart device allows users to dial faster;

– The ability to ignore calls with a quick text message lets users tell a caller “I’m in a meeting” or “Can’t talk now”;

– The large, bright color screen is perfect for viewing email, documents or spreadsheets via DataViz Documents To Go(R), and even photos and movies;

– The highly regarded built-in QWERTY keyboard has improved buttons, making it even easier to type emails or SMS messages;

– The messaging application displays text-messaging conversations as “threaded chats,” similar to IM, so users can see their entire conversation with a particular person; and

– The Treo 680 smart device also can be used as an MP3 player and has an integrated digital camera, camcorder and video player, with simpler organization for photos and photo slideshows.

“The Palm Treo 680 will open up the popular Palm experience to a much wider audience of Cingular customers,” said Jeff Bradley, vice president, business data services, for Cingular Wireless. “This next-generation Treo comes with all of the outstanding business features that Palm devotees have come to expect plus rich entertainment capabilities, and all at a very attractive price that will appeal both to businesses and individual users.”

The Palm Treo 680 operates on Cingular’s nationwide EDGE network, the largest national high-speed wireless data network in the United States with availability in more than 13,000 cities and towns, and along some 40,000 miles of major highways. Treo 680 users also can take their device with them abroad to make calls on six continents and over 190 countries, with wireless data roaming in more than 115 countries.

EDGE’s widespread coverage makes the Treo 680 an ideal platform for business customers and consumers who want an easy-to-use way to check their email, send SMS, browse the Web and more.

“Palm remains focused on introducing Treo smartphones that are user-friendly and affordable for any audience — from single users to wide-scale business deployments,” said Tara Griffin, Palm vice president and general manager. “The Treo 680 from Cingular Wireless is an excellent proof point. We have a tremendous opportunity to serve customers the world over by helping them stay more connected to important people and information, whether it’s through contacts and calendar, email, messaging, documents, web browsing, photos or music. This mobile phone enhances work and leisure time.”

Business Customer-focused Solution

While Palm’s ease of use and affordability are beneficial for new or upgrading consumers, business users also can take advantage of the Treo 680 smart device, because of the following:

– Flexibility: The all-in-one Treo 680 smart device is ideal for deployment across any business, small or large, and offers the security and flexibility needed by IT departments for easy integration;

– High return on investment: Because of its attractive price and ease of use, the Treo 680 brings increased mobile productivity to help businesses realize a quick return on investment, all in a budget-friendly smart device;

– Staying productive: Phone, web, add-on business applications and more help customers stay in touch and on top of their work; and

– Staying connected: Customers can access such Cingular-enabled wireless email solutions as Cingular Xpress Mail, Microsoft Exchange Active Sync, and Good(TM) Mobile Messaging from Good Technology, as well as POP3 and IMAP accounts.

“The Palm Treo 680 smartphone is a natural and affordable choice for our business,” said Robert DeLille, chief executive officer of Creative Office Environments. “With more on-device memory and the availability of intuitive applications, such as Google Maps for Mobile, on the Cingular Wireless network, our workforce can be more productive and stay in touch with customers and colleagues.”

Pricing and Availability

The Treo 680 is available beginning Friday, Nov. 24, for as low as $199.99 to consumers and businesses nationwide at Cingular Wireless retail stores, www.cingular.com, select national retailers, through Cingular’s B2B sales organization and at http://www.palm.com/treo680. A variety of monthly data plans are available, including an unlimited Cingular PDA Connect plan for $44.99 per month.

For a limited time, the Treo 680 will come with a music bundle from Yahoo!, which includes a 30-day free trial to its Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go service and Yahoo! Music For Mobile. Users have the ability to access the Yahoo! Music Unlimited music library from the phone and to send tracks remotely to a PC.

The Palm Treo 680 from Cingular Wireless also supports a wide variety of third-party, Cingular Wireless certified applications, such as the TeleNav GPS Navigator(TM) solution. With TeleNav GPS Navigator, Treo 680 users now can get turn-by-turn voice and on-screen GPS directions directly on their device for use when driving or walking.

Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) today announced that Kazakhtelecom JSC, the leading fixed incumbent service provider in Kazakhstan, has selected Alcatel’s optical networking solution for triple play service delivery, including enhanced high-speed Internet access and evolution to IPTV (Internet protocol television), across the country. The new 6,000 km optical transport network will increase the capacity and extend the reach of Kazakhtelecom’s existing infrastructure, broadening its service offering to new areas.

The turnkey project is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2007. Based on Alcatel’s market-leading optical networking technologies, the new network will be the longest backbone network to be rolled-out in Central Asia, covering around 133 districts, 10 regional and 14 local departments.

The deployment of Alcatel’s end-to-end optical networking solution will dramatically boost Kazakhtelecom’s current network capacity to cost-effectively support existing and new services, including local to international voice services and broadcasting. This will enable Kazakhtelecom to optimize bandwidth according to the multiple traffic loads and to improve the quality of the xDSL service currently offered for high-speed Internet access.

“Kazakhtelecom is successfully carrying out strategic programs for the modernization of its telecommunication network, with a focus on guaranteeing high-quality and universal accessibility to services,” stated Azamat Syrgabayev, Vice-president, and Chief technical officer of Kazakhtelecom. “We firmly believe that Alcatel’s expertise in optical networking, along with its deep understanding of customer needs, can help us broaden our service offering and reinforce key benefits such as investment protection and cost-effectiveness.”

“Strengthening Alcatel’s long-lasting cooperation with Kazakhtelecom, this project marks a new important phase in the deployment of advanced optical transport technologies,” said Romano Valussi, President of Alcatel’s optical networking activities. “The functionality, flexibility and scalability offered by our solutions will help Kazakhtelecom address the accelerated broadband traffic growth, while preparing for new services yet to come, and drive greater operational efficiencies.”

The Alcatel optical/data convergent solution will be based on its 1626 Light Manager (LM) DWDM equipment, 1678 Metro Core Connect (MCC) and its Optical Multi-Service Node (OMSN) systems, all managed by the Alcatel 1350 management suite. Furthermore, Alcatel will be in charge of the installation, commissioning and integration of the equipment.