Alcatel’s "Live Sailing" wins ’Best Made for Mobile Sports Infotainment’ category of 2006 GSM Association Awards

Barcelona, February 16, 2006 — Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) today announced that it has won the “Best Made for Mobile Sport Infotainment” category of the 2006 GSM Association Awards for its innovative “Live Sailing” service which enables sailing enthusiasts to interactively experience live America’s Cup sailing action on their mobile phone. This achievement was announced during the Awards Gala Evening at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on February 14.

As the Official New Media Provider of the 32nd America’s Cup, Alcatel created “Live Sailing” in addition to a host of other new media services for Mobile phones and Broadband-connected PCs to extend the thrill of the 32nd America’s Cup to a wider audience than ever before, and to provide sailing fans with a unique and exciting content-rich experience of America’s Cup sailing action.

For the first time in the history of the America’s Cup, Live Sailing enables sailing fans of the 32nd America’s Cup to follow the action live on their mobile handsets from wherever they are in the world. It does this through providing live animated images and race news on mobile Java™ handsets - GSM/GPRS/EDGE and 3G/UMTS. ’Live Sailing’ animations include different camera angles during races, boat trajectories, wind direction, distances between boats and the finish line, and archives of previous races.

“Alcatel is honored to receive the award in the ”Best Made for Mobile Sports Infotainment“ category of the 2006 GSMA Awards,” stated Etienne Fouques, President of Alcatel’s mobile communications activities. “Our role of ”Official New Media Provider“ of the America’s Cup, is an opportunity to experiment and explore new media opportunities and business models with Operators and Broadcasters, including Mobile TV and IPTV. As content becomes increasingly important to the business of our customers, we are dedicated to ensuring that we continue to be at the forefront of helping our customers’ business success. The success of ”Live Sailing“ is a small but significant proof point of our focus on enabling content-rich services.”

Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association, added: “The 2006 GSM Association Awards have been specifically designed to showcase the diversity of products and services and the quality, ingenuity and level of innovations that are combined to fuel the mobile value chain. Entries this year have again exceeded our highest expectations, reflecting the vibrancy of the mobile industry on a global basis. My congratulations on your successful achievement for the 2006 Awards”.


About Alcatel
Alcatel provides communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications to their customers or employees. Alcatel brings its leading position in fixed and mobile broadband networks, applications and services, to help its partners and customers build a user-centric broadband world. With sales of EURO 13.1 billion and 58,000 employees in 2005, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries.

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Régine Coqueran

Alcatel

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