Bell Labs, University of Melbourne and the Victoria State Government team up to open eco-oriented research center in Australia

AU$10 million center to focus on researching energy efficient technology for the communications industry

Paris - Ben Verwaayen CEO of Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), Australia’s Victorian State Treasurer John Lenders, and University of Melbourne Professor Rod Tucker today announced that Alcatel-Lucent’s research arm, Bell Labs, the University of Melbourne and the Victorian State Government are partnering to establish a research center in Melbourne, Australia that will be devoted to innovation in energy efficient networks and technologies.

The Victorian-based research facility, to be called the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET), will have a staff of researchers and technology experts that will build to a team of 22 during the next three years. Bell Labs and the University of Melbourne will share governance of the center which will be based at the University.

The center will conduct research on a broad range of telecommunications network infrastructure elements and will focus on how those elements can be made more energy efficient. This is an important objective in light of the exponential growth in the usage of those networks that is resulting in a rapid increase in energy consumption. Both the University of Melbourne and Bell Labs are members of the GreenTouch™ initiative, a global, industry-wide consortium formed to achieve a dramatic improvement in energy efficiency by driving a radical redesign of communications networks. Accordingly, the research activities undertaken by the Center will be used to further the GreenTouch initiative and its objectives.

In achieving its goals, CEET will draw on Bell Labs’ decades of achieving breakthrough innovations and its extensive experience in managing collaborative research projects as well as on the University of Melbourne’s world-class research in telecommunications network infrastructure.

Victorian State Treasurer John Lenders says that what makes CEET so valuable is both the step it takes toward green telecommunications objectives and the research opportunities it provides for Australia.
“It will enable the Victorian State to position itself as a place for information and communications technology research and a center for green communications research, development and training.”

Professor Rod Tucker from the University of Melbourne’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering says that to team up with Bell Labs, world-renowned for its ability to generate breakthrough innovations, is an exciting step for Melbourne University.

“It adds significant expertise to our strong track record of research into energy efficient telecommunications,” he says.

Ben Verwaayen, Alcatel-Lucent CEO says that finding ways to reduce energy consumption is a challenge that our society faces and that our industry is well positioned to address.
“CEET is an example of an initiative that has the potential to play a decisive role in meeting this challenge because it has the key ingredients for success: partners with deep research experience and complementary goals,” he says.

About the University of Melbourne
Established in 1853, the University of Melbourne is a leading Australia research-led university that makes distinctive contributions to society in external linkresearch, external linkteaching and external linkknowledge transfer. The University is noted for its research excellence across many disciplines and leads the five main indicators for competitive research funding in Australia. Internationally, Melbourne’s teaching and research is ranked in the top 100 universities worldwide in the prestigious Academic World University. Its energy and sustainability research is considered world-class and takes rigorous a cross-disciplinary approach.

About Alcatel-Lucent’s eco sustainability initiatives
As a responsible corporate citizen and leader in the telecoms industry, Alcatel-Lucent works to enrich people’s lives by transforming the way the world communicates and connects, and by acting in full recognition of its social and environmental responsibilities as a company. Alcatel-Lucent also recognizes the important role the telecommunications sector must play in the global effort to address environmental issues such as climate change. It is devoted to be an active community player and to involve suppliers and business partners in its sustainability approach. Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent’s research arm, is also the lead organizer of the Green Touch™ initiative, an international industry consortium dedicated to substantially reducing ICT’s carbon footprint by a factor of 1,000.

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted transformation partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries such as defense, energy, healthcare, transportation, 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 15.2 billion in 2009 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