@Home upgrades backbone network in the Netherlands with Alcatel-Lucent intelligent optical solution

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) announced today that it has successfully upgraded the infrastructure of @Home (formerly Essent Kabelcom), a leading cable operator in the Netherlands, to enhance network capacity and reliability. The project enables @Home to meet increased IP broadband requirements to support broadcast and data services, as well as to offer service quality upgrades to its business and residential customers across the country.

Alcatel-Lucent’s intelligent optical solution provides @Home with a convergent platform integrating optical and packet-aggregation functionality. Leveraging the optical aggregation and multi-service transport capabilities of the Alcatel-Lucent solution, @Home benefits from enhanced packet-based efficiency, along with simplified service provisioning and network operations. As the number of nodes in the network is greatly reduced, this significantly lowers @Home’s operational expenditures for maintenance, network management and planning.

“Network simplification and improved network performance are key requirements to deliver new, time-to-market services to our end-users and in addition keep our operational cost under control,” says Pierre Wolters Manager Technical Operations of @Home. “The Alcatel-Lucent solution allows us to address a wide variety of applications, from the metro to the backbone, by consolidating different functionalities into a scalable solution that can evolve as needed.”

“New packet-based services are driving operators like @Home to raise the bar on their network flexibility and robustness for maximum service availability,” said Romano Valussi, Head of Alcatel-Lucent’s optics activities. “With the best-in-class scalability, our optical solution helps @Home strengthen data connectivity to enrich the end-user experience with new IP-based services.”

This new achievement further strengthens the Alcatel-Lucent momentum with cable operators as they transform their networks to cope with the new wave of user-centric communications and entertainment services. The Alcatel-Lucent solution is based on its 1678 Metro Core Connect (MCC) and data-aware Optical Multi-Service Node (OMSN) systems. The solution is managed by the 1350 management suite, an integrated portfolio of applications to manage packet, circuit and wavelength services. Furthermore, Alcatel-Lucent was responsible for project management, installation and commissioning and will be in charge of network maintenance.


About @Home
@Home, which operates an extensive cable infrastructure in the northern, eastern and southern parts of the Netherlands, supplies three products over its network: radio and TV, broadband Internet and telephony. The company is active in both the private and the business markets. Serving around 1.7 million connections, it is the Netherlands’ second largest cable company. The number of people accessing the network each day is over 5 million. @Home’s network, a combination of glass fiber and coax, is ideally suited to the rapid transport of large volumes of data. Over 639,000 customers are connected to the Internet, making @Home one of the Netherlands’ largest Internet providers, yet with an infrastructure covering scarcely a quarter of the country. Telephony is a rapidly growing service of the company. @Work is the brand of @Home serving all the business-propositions for glass fiber networks. At the moment @Home and cable companies Casema and Multikabel are joining forces to become the largest cable company of the Netherlands at the end of the year.

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications, and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With 79,000 employees and operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved proforma combined revenues of Euro 18.6 billion in 2005, and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. [All figures exclude impact of activities to be transferred to Thales]. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com