Alcatel-Lucent helps communications service providers track and fix network performance problems before they happen

More than 30 communications service providers around the world are working with Alcatel-Lucent’s experts to identify and remedy possible trouble spots quickly and efficiently



Paris, France – – Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) has introduced a new set of services to proactively analyze the health and performance of telecommunications networks, identify potential problems and take appropriate actions to prevent or minimize their impact. Communications service providers around the world are taking advantage of the company’s engineering expertise and Bell Labs-developed monitoring tools to eliminate service outages and quality issues before they reach subscribers.

Network performance is a critical issue today – it can mean the difference between whether someone remains a loyal customer or seeks another service provider. Modern networks are complex, multi-faceted systems, and the relationship and interaction between various parts of the network can be difficult to anticipate. Changes either within or outside of the network can cause unexpected problems that are not always immediately visible with traditional monitoring.

Today, the focus of the Proactive Services Suite is improving the performance of wireless networks, but Alcatel-Lucent is expanding the capabilities to support multimedia networks (based on IP Multimedia Subsystem technology), optical transmission systems and Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The company also will be introducing support for equipment from other vendors by the end of this year, a capability unique in the market.

The Proactive Services Suite provides a way to continuously monitor and analyze network performance in detail, identify emerging problems quickly and recommend or take specific actions to resolve those problems, often before they are even noticed by subscribers. Built into the suite of services is a unique intelligence feature of continuous learning that captures error signatures. This information allows Alcatel-Lucent experts to learn network behaviour and share ideas and solutions based on past experiences.

U.S.-based mobile operator nTelos is using Alcatel-Lucent’s Mobile Trace Analyser, part of the Proactive Services Suite, to maintain and improve the health of its network. Brian Biernat, Director, Wireless Switch Engineering & Planning for nTelos, said: “For our company it has allowed us to be more proactive in identifying potential issues and resolving them before they become service affecting. This helps us improve network quality and reliability, which in turn helps us maintain high levels of customer satisfaction and minimize churn - a key performance metric in our industry. Alcatel-Lucent has been a great partner”. Biernat added: “Once you try Mobile Trace Analyser, I think you will find you can’t live without it”.

Alcatel-Lucent’s suite of proactive services fosters ongoing partnerships geared toward improving a network operator’s network performance. These services cover Alcatel-Lucent and major products from other vendors. Key elements of the suite include:

*Proactive Care Service – Monitors fault data from a customer’s network elements in near real-time against Quality of Service (QoS) health criteria, and provides analysis reports and recommendations for immediate intervention before it becomes end-user impacting.
*Network Analysis Services - Uses data provided from real-time monitoring and predictive modeling enabled by Bell Labs algorithms, to identify network trends and outage conditions before they impact services.
*Reporting Services - Monitors customer network elements’ fault data against Quality of Service (QoS) health indices, and provides analysis reports that are used by the customer to identify network elements that may need preventive or corrective maintenance support.

Customer Self-Service – provides tools to customers enabling either network troubleshoot of call trace records and/or testing wireless terminal devices, customer premises equipment (CPE) and handsets prior to introducing them into a customer network.

These services are available to support a broad range of wireless and next-generation networks across major technologies including LTE, W-CDMA, Optics, CDMA, GSM, IMS, Applications and IP.

Mike Lawson, VP, Customer Care Product Management, Alcatel-Lucent, said: “Proactive Services help operators actively address issues before they escalate into major operational concerns. Alcatel-Lucent offers a broad portfolio of services, provided by the leading experts in the business that are focused on ensuring optimal network availability.”



About Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU)

The long-trusted partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries and governments around the world, Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in mobile, fixed, IP and Optics technologies, and a pioneer in applications and services. Alcatel-Lucent includes Bell Labs, one of the world’s foremost centres of research and innovation in communications technology.

With operations in more than 130 countries and one of the most experienced global services organizations in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach.

The Company achieved revenues of Euro 16 billion in 2010 and is incorporated in France and headquartered in Paris.

For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com