Alcatel-Lucent wins Nextgen Networks contract for National Broadband Network regional backbone

Sydney - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that Nextgen Networks will deploy its leading optical platformas part of the first building block of the National Broadband Network (NBN) on mainland Australia.

Nextgen Networks, a specialist provider of high-quality data services in Australia, was recently announced as the successful tenderer for the Australian Government’s $250 million Regional Backbone Blackspots Program to deliver competitive backhaul links into major regional centres.

Alcatel-Lucent will be the major optical equipment supplier to Nextgen Networks and will immediately deliver its longhaul dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) platform, photonic service switches (PSS) and transport service switches (TSS), providing future proof and highly flexible optical transmission as the new fibre links are built out over the next 18 months.

“This is a significant milestone for Nextgen Networks and will enable more people and businesses in regional cities and towns to access competitive broadband and mobile services. It is one of the first building blocks of Australia’s NBN“ said Phil Sykes, Managing Director of Nextgen Networks.

“Based on their global optical leadership and an established, successful eight year partnership with us, Alcatel-Lucent was the obvious choice to work with to meet Australia’s growing demand for backhaul capacity.”

“We have the technology ready and all the right people in place to get started straight away on this deployment, which is a great step forward for the Government’s wider NBN vision,” said Andrew Butterworth, Managing Director, Alcatel-Lucent Australia.

“Supported by the best of breed technology and established services we are providing, Nextgen Networks will deploy a network that will easily scale to meet the dramatically increasing backhaul capacity demands that we anticipate the NBN to drive over the next eight years and beyond.”

Alcatel-Lucent will provide its 1626 Light Manager (LM) and 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) regional DWDM solution, leveraging the unique Zero Touch Photonics approach to deliver high network performance and flexibility for service quality assurance including a world-first wavelength tracker to improve traffic monitoring and fault management within an optical network. The Alcatel-Lucent solution also includes the 1850 Transport Service Switch (TSS), a new class of multiservice transport platform that supports any mix of traffic, from all-circuit to all packet, with carrier class levels of reliability.

Alongside this, Alcatel-Lucent’s network management services from its Global Network Operations Centre (GNOC) in Sydney, Australia, will provide round-the-clock support and service provisioning to Nextgen’s Service Management Centre for best-in-class network operations.

The construction of backbone transmission links will provide access points to six priority blackspots for competitive backhaul in regional Australia, and will provide another 102 competitive backbone access points in every mainland State.

About Nextgen Networks
Nextgen owns and operates 8,500km of fibre optic cable from Brisbane to Perth. It is a specialist transmission services provider to telecommunication carriers and service providers, corporations and government. It does not sell services to consumer or residential customers. Nextgen is wholly owned by Australia’s largest project development and contracting group, Leighton Holdings Limited, and a member of Leighton Contractors Telecommunications Division.

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted partner of service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 16.98 billion in 2008 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com