Alcatel wins Frost & Sullivan 2006 Market Leadership of the Year Award for triple play architecture vision

Paris, September 21, 2006 – Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) today announced it has won the 2006 Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership of the Year Award in the European fixed telecoms market category. The award recognizes the company’s achievement in defining the network architecture for triple play deployments. Alcatel’s successful triple play service delivery architecture has been widely adopted in Europe and the company’s activities across the globe have substantially helped to put triple play at the forefront of the telecommunications market today. Frost & Sullivan’s award will be given to Alcatel at the “Excellence in Information and Communications Technologies” event to be held in London on October 24, 2006.

“Alcatel, with a clear vision of the direction being taken by the marketplace, developed a product portfolio and defined a network blueprint that has been widely accepted in the European marketplace and beyond,” said Frost & Sullivan Analyst, Fernando Elizalde. “By combining a high-quality solution, excellent attention to customer requirements and superb marketing, the company has become the leader in the telecommunications market for triple play architecture. Thus, these cumulative factors make Alcatel the deserving recipient of the 2006 Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Leadership of the Year.”

“Alcatel has developed an end-to-end, reference triple play architecture and we are very pleased that Frost & Sullivan has recognized our efforts in this high-growth market,” said Michel Rahier, president of Alcatel’s fixed communications activities. “We see triple play as a driving force in the IP transformation of our customers’ networks. In such strategic network transformation process, they can leverage Alcatel’s leadership positions in products, solutions and integration capabilities.”

With a comprehensive end-to-end portfolio Alcatel was able to grow not only its customer base, but also its product share within the existing customer base. Alcatel is involved in the majority of triple play programs in Europe. Incumbent telecom operators as well as alternative service providers have engaged Alcatel to help them build triple play network architectures as well as IP transformation projects.

Alcatel’s triple play footprint includes European incumbent operators such as Belgacom, France Telecom, KPN, Swisscom, TDC, Deutsche Telekom, T-Online Hungary, Telefónica of Spain, Iceland Telecom, Elion Enterprises and Telekom Austria. Alternative and cable operators where Alcatel has deployed its triple play solutions include Be Unlimited, Ya.com, Auna, Com Hem, NTL, and Sistema JSFC, among others. Alcatel is involved in more than 40 major triple play deployments worldwide including AT&T who selected the portfolio as part of its project Lightspeed which will provide IPTV, video on demand, and high-speed Internet for up to 18 million households in the U.S.

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

About Alcatel’s IP Network Transformation
As operators increasingly move to an all-IP world, they turn to Alcatel to partner on such strategic network transformation process. Leveraging its unmatched portfolio of IP systems and applications, as well as its intimate knowledge of network complexity and business issues, Alcatel helps operators offer next generation enhanced services while optimizing operational costs. Alcatel’s end-to-end integration expertise also allows them to respect their timeframes, control the migration paths and manage the associated risks. Alcatel is currently involved in more than 40 network transformation projects worldwide including AT&T (project Lightspeed), BT (Fusion and Enterprise Fixed-Mobile Convergence) and Telstra.

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Mark Burnworth

Corporate Media Relations

Alcatel

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