Alcatel Next Generation Carrier Class Core Switch Commended by Industry Experts.

Business & High Tech Editors

SUPERCOMM 2000

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 6, 2000

Latest Addition to Broadband Services Portfolio, Alcatel 670 RSP 

Answers Industry Demand for Terabit-Capable Multi Protocol Platform

Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) announced today the Alcatel 670 Routing Switch Platform (RSP), an industry first, is receiving tremendous praise by industry experts and customers trialing the product. The latest addition to Alcatel's family of products and services, the 670 RSP is a next generation multiprotocol platform that integrates asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and Internet protocol (IP) on the same platform. The Alcatel 670 RSP provides carriers with a fully managed, highly scalable solution for today's voice and data applications that can grow to meet the requirements for the backbone of the next generation network.

"We believe the Alcatel 670 RSP, which is currently undergoing rigorous testing and evaluation at our labs, will provide us with the scalability, reliability and capacity necessary to meet the current and future demands of our growing customer base," says in-service trial customer, France Telecom. "The design and concept of the Alcatel 670 RSP are in line with the direction that France Telecom is moving."

"We looked at several of the leading networking companies before selecting Alcatel because we wanted to make sure we were getting best-of-class products to support our network infrastructure," said Bart Voeten, chief technology officer of 1-Net. "Alcatel not only offers the highest capacity switch available on the market today, but it also offers a complete end-to-end solution that fits our needs."

"To keep pace with the exponential growth in demand for bandwidth and high performance services that Hanaro experiences on a daily basis, Hanaro continues its pursuit of utilizing and pioneering network core infrastructures specifically optimized for high speed multimedia Internet services," said Yunsik Shin, president of Hanaro Telecom Inc. "Alcatel's IP/MPLS/ATM core platform offering unparalleled traffic management, high performance and carrier class reliability is the foundation of Hanaro's network. We need solutions that are future-proof and only Alcatel can provide that level of carrier class performance, in-service upgradeability in a highly scalable platform. By deploying the Alcatel 670 RSP throughout our core backbone now, we are preparing for higher speed connectivity and new technologies in the future," Shin added.

"The 670 RSP is designed as a next generation multiprotocol backbone platform with full capability to support both today's revenue-generating voice traffic and the continuing, tremendous growth in data traffic," said Pearse Flynn, president of Alcatel's Carrier Networking Group.

Analysts agree, the addition of the 670 RSP to Alcatel's overall broadband services portfolio strongly positions the Company in the highly competitive IP market, assisting service providers in transitioning from ATM to IP packet-based networks. As customers place more pressing demands on their service providers, the providers will need solutions that provide full integration, scalability, and reliability in addition to superior network management and traffic flow support.

"As more service providers look toward transitioning from ATM to IP-based networks, there are several important considerations to factor into their decisions," said Christin Flynn, senior analyst at The Yankee Group. "Two of the most pressing requirements are the ability to handle network and service management via an integrated switching and routing platform. Alcatel's introduction of its 670 Routing Switch Platform is an example of a company making sure it has the components of a solution firmly in place to meet the demands of service providers."

Alcatel's ground-breaking multiprotocol 670 RSP meets these clearly identified demands for merging data and voice services over an IP/MPLS/ATM platform, ensuring that service providers can remain competitive in today's marketplace. The 670 RSP merges best-of-class ATM and MPLS protocols with IP on a single terabit-ready platform, giving service providers seamless integration of emerging voice and data services. From the most stringent forms of traffic flow, such as carrier grade voice services, to the rigorous reliability demands of data transmission, Alcatel once again demonstrates its expertise in building highly scalable and reliable networking products.

"The networks of tomorrow must be able to generate significant operational and capital savings for carriers to remain profitable, in addition to reducing their time to market for new service offerings," said Raj Mehta of RHK. "To meet those objectives, core networking platforms such as Alcatel's 670 RSP must feature scalability, coupled with reliability and high performance."

The Alcatel 670 RSP offers traffic capacity from 50 Gb/s to five Tb/s, while maintaining unparalleled traffic management, high performance and carrier class reliability. For routing and signalling, the Alcatel 670 RSP provides dual control planes for IP/MPLS/ATM protocols. IP flows, MPLS paths and ATM virtual circuits (VCs) can be configured flexibly with per-port or per-VC/label switch path (LSP) granularity. Signalled connections employ the powerful Alcatel Parallel Call Processing Architecture to achieve industry leading call performance with sustained rates of thousands of calls-per-second-per-node. The 670 RSP is manageable through SNMP and under Alcatel's industry leading network management umbrella.

About Alcatel

Alcatel builds next generation networks, delivering integrated end-to-end voice and data networking solutions to established and new carriers, as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide. With 120,000 employees and sales of EURO 23 billion in 1999, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com.