Alcatel successfully enhances RAILTEL’s telecom network throughout India

Paris, July 12, 2006 - Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) today announced that it has successfully completed the 5,000 km extension of the existing optical multi-service telecommunications transport network of RAILTEL Corporation of India, a subsidiary of Indian Railways. This network enhancement further supports RAILTEL’s operational and business communication requirements, such as secure voice, video and data traffic transmission. As a result, RAILTEL can leverage significant performance, efficiency and quality of service benefits for its customers, along with competitively providing wholesale bandwidth to other telecom operators and enterprises.

The extension project, which was awarded through Punjab Communications, India’s premier telecom and IT equipment and solution provider, follows the successful implementation of the 11,000 km backbone network supporting multimedia communications among RAILTEL’s sites throughout India. Existing and new mission-critical business applications, supported by Gigabit Ethernet-based connectivity, are delivered over a single, converged platform that enables reliable, real-time access to monitoring and control information.

“Transportation companies are increasingly requested to enhance their optical transport networks to introduce new data applications for advanced traffic monitoring,” said Romano Valussi, President of Alcatel’s optical networking activities. “Alcatel has the portfolio and project management expertise to deliver tailored solutions that fit the requirements of vertical markets for mission-critical applications and business efficiency.”

Alcatel supplied its data-aware Optical Multi-Service Node (OMSN) systems, providing advanced multi-service aggregation functionality, managed by the Alcatel 1350 management suite, which supervises the entire optical networking portfolio enabling complete control over optical networks and maximizing network service revenue.

About Alcatel’s optical solutions
The world leader in optical networking for the fifth year running with a 16% market share in 2005 (Source: Ovum-RHK), Alcatel is spearheading the transformation of optical transport to IP/Ethernet. Alcatel’s end-to-end optical portfolio supports a broad range of services and applications such as triple play, Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, Virtual Private Networks and 3G mobile backhauling. More than 700 customers in over 150 countries have deployed Alcatel’s terrestrial and submarine solutions for fixed and mobile applications as well as in the transportation, power utility or research and education markets

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. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com

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Mireille Holopherne

Corporate Media Relations

Alcatel

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