Alcatel-Lucent 9900 Wireless Network Guardian Receives Top Honors in CTIA Emerging Technology Award in Two Separate Categories

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that its Alcatel-Lucent 9900 Wireless Network Guardian (WNG) was selected as the winner of CTIA WIRELESS 2008 Wireless Emerging Technologies (E-tech) Awards as best product in two separate categories- “4G - Service Management” and “Network Infrastructure for Wide Area Networks.” Award recipients were announced April 3 in a ceremony at the Las Vegas Convention Center during the CTIA WIRELESS trade show.

The Wireless E-tech Awards program is designed to give industry recognition and exposure to the best wireless products and services in the areas of Consumer, Enterprise and Network technology. Over 300 applications were submitted and reviewed by a panel of recognized members of the media, industry analysts and executives, as well as select show attendees. Products were judged on innovation, functionality, technological importance, implementation and overall “wow” factor.

Invented by Bell Labs and commercialized in its Alcatel-Lucent Ventures organization, the 9900 WNG is the industry’s first mobile network management solution that addresses a critical emerging need by carriers for enhanced visibility in third-generation (3G) and emerging 4G networks. Unaddressed, this gap in network visibility could lead to network disruption as wireless network operators increasingly support new data services, devices, and applications.

“We are honored that the 9900 Wireless Network Guardian was honored by CTIA for two separate top awards. It is further validation of this product’s impact on enabling and optimizing data services over the wireless networks of today and tomorrow,” said Wim Sweldens, vice president, Alcatel-Lucent Ventures. “The 9900 WNG makes it possible for carriers to monitor and engineer their wireless data flow with the level of granularity needed to understand each flow’s impact on every layer and choke point in the wireless network, specifically the radio access network. With this capacity carriers are now able to efficiently and optimally accommodate demanding data applications through traffic optimization and/or strategic network expansion.”

“The CTIA Emerging Technology Awards recognize the best wireless products and services in the industry,” said CTIA vice president and show director Robert Mesirow. “Congratulations to Alcatel-Lucent for winning first place in both the 4G service management and the Network Infrastructure/WAN categories.”

Wireless behavioral research conducted by Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs over the last three years shows that transmitting IP packet data and IP applications place significantly different load types on wireless networks than voice traffic. As an example, when considering common applications such as VPN, e-mail, Web-surfing, and peer-to-peer, some use up to 1,000 times more wireless network resources (airtime, signaling, etc.) per byte of data than others - potentially creating substantial network congestion if left unaddressed. This challenge is increasing with the growing adoption of more sophisticated, high-bandwidth services and the trend toward “open” wireless networks.

Until today, carriers did not have a single tool that could comprehensively track IP traffic across the many network layers and measure its consumption of wireless network resources – a situation that could cause service-affecting network problems as new applications are transmitted on wireless networks. By connecting usage sessions to wireless network resource consumption, the Alcatel-Lucent 9900 Wireless Network Guardian provides critical network visibility that service providers will need in order to manage the effects that IP-based applications will have on their wireless networks.