Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News
ALU: Leaders in Gartner's Magic Quadrant
Alcatel-Lucent has been placed in the leaders' quadrant of the recently published Gartner "Magic Quadrant for Corporate Telephony."
The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period, depicting Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that particular marketplace.
The latest Gartner report -- which for the first time, evaluates corporate telephony vendors from a global rather than regional perspective -- recognizes that the market is evolving "from one of proprietary hardware to one of standards-based software" that provides companies the opportunity to "use IP telephony to deliver business benefits across the organization, while consolidating technologies around a common technology or solution provider, or selection of providers and their partners."
Is ALU Pursuing Openreach?
Newly minted Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen is rumored to be negotiating with former employer BT (Verwaayen, who was appointed Al-Lu CEO last month, ran the carrier until April of this year) on taking over operational responsibility for BT's Openreach.
Openreach is a division of BT that was established as a result of an agreement BT and regulator Ofcom to give rival operators equal access to BT's local network.
As Openreach proudly proclaims on its Web site: "We are the proud guardians of the nation's local access network, sometimes referred to as the 'first mile.'"
The Register was first with this story and has it that BT is negotiating the outsourcing of its network access arm.
According to a report on TelecomTV, Alcatel Lucent already has an outsourcing contract with BT Global Services that is worth about ... [$350 million per year] ... "and a not-so-secret weapon in the form of Ben Verwaayen."
If Verwaayen could secure a multi-billion dollar deal so soon after taking the helm of Alcatel-Lucent it would certainly be a nice achievement this quickly into his tenure.
Advancing Broadband Deployment
In cooperation with the East Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) consortium, Alcatel-Lucent plans to provide regional bandwidth capacity of 1.4 Terabit/s via a combined submarine and terrestrial optical solution.
The company says the bandwidth will be enough to "satisfy broadband needs for years to come."
According to the announcement:
The EASSy submarine cable network will provide connectivity across the continent to support the increase in local traffic from both traditional and new broadband services. Additionally, with interconnection to other submarine cable systems to the North and South, this project will provide an international gateway, crucial for the economic development of the region and for the reduction of the digital divide.
The submarine network will span nearly 10,000 km linking eight countries from Sudan to South Africa, via Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mozambique.
Alcatel-Lucent is a major proponent of ensuring that developing territories the world over have access to broadband.
In a recent paper titled Broadband Policy Guidelines in High-Growth Economies, the company explained the potential of broadband and how its availability can play a transformative role in the development of a region
Broadband's potential can be used as a key driver for economic growth, attracting foreign investment, developing territory attractiveness, and enabling a thriving community. Yet barriers to broadband mass adoption such as affordability, accessibility, awareness, and literacy still prevail.
Broadband is not just the Internet made faster. The definition of broadband is a matter of semantics; what should be emphasized is the deployment of a technology that supports sufficient bandwidth connections to the Internet for the service intended.
Laptop Guardian Security Solution Goes Global
In order for all the exciting next-generation communications services to be widely adopted by corporate users, certain conditions must be in place, among them ubiquity and security. Not only do business users need access to their applications everywhere and anywhere, the access they crave must be secure.
Earlier this week, Alcatel-Lucent announced global availability of a high-speed packet access (HSPA) version of its OmniAccess 3500 Nonstop Laptop Guardian (OA3500 NLG).
This solution is designed to protect and recover stolen laptops and data, and was previously available only on CDMA-based 3G networks. (TMC's Rich Tehrani wrote here about the earlier model, which is offered by Sprint on its CDMA network in the US.)
Furthermore, in a recent survey of 255 executive level IT, security and compliance decision makers in the U.S. and Germany, it turns out that 76 percent of respondents believe it is necessary to protect a lost or stolen laptop with more than encryption alone - such as having the ability to locate the device using GPS and remotely revoking access to data.
And in a finding that should serve as a warning to complacent mobile operators everywhere, 50 percent of companies said they would switch to an operator that offers a security solution that protects lost or stolen laptops used remotely, provides auto virtual private network capabilities, and allows IT to manage laptops even when they're turned off.
For more details on Alcatel-Lucent's OmniAccess 3500 Nonstop Laptop Guardian solution, check out the Web site.
SingTel of Singapore, Magyar Telekom of Hungary, and broadband carrier IIJ (Internet Initiative Japan Inc.) of Japan all unveiled plans to offer the device on their networks.
North Africa to See Enterprise Voice & Data
Tunisia telecomm integrator TTE and Alcatel-Lucent have joined forces to supply enterprise voice and data solutions in the North African nations of Libya and Tunisia. The agreement will showcase the two firms' common skills and technological abilities and broaden their presence in North Africa. Alcatel-Lucent and TTE will work together to offer complete and secure communication solutions while evolving the network infrastructure to help businesses and governments increase competitiveness and cost-effectiveness. To mark the special occasion, an open house will be held on Nov. 13, 2008 at "Les Berges du Lac Concorde Hotel" in Tunis, Tunisia.
ALU, BT Extend Services Pact
Building on a Multi-Vendor Managed Services contract signed in November 2006, Alcatel-Lucent has announced a seven-year extension of its partnership with UK carrier BT, focused on the support of BT's global network operations. According to published reports, Alcatel-Lucent will manage most of the legacy networks serving BT Global Services' customers, thus freeing up BT to focus on its next-generation communications initiative, the BT Global 21CN Platform. During the first phase of the project Alcatel-Lucent will assume operations for five legacy global and domestic networks in 27 countries outside the UK, along with the BT Global Managed Platform legacy transport network.
In Tough Economy, Innovation Holds the Key
Alcatel-Lucent, currently undergoing a strategy review under their new CEO, recently said that market conditions are forcing the firm to lower their 2008 sales expectations by 2-5 percent, according to this Reuters item.
However, the article also reported that ALU's investor relations chief, Remi Thomas, said he believed "carriers would continue to invest in strategic areas designed to generate new business, in capital equipment that could reduce operating expenses, and to meet regulatory requirements."
It is precisely this need for customers to generate new business that should help firms that develop innovative telecom solutions to weather the financial storms roiling the global markets.
A recent article by Xavier Martin, who handles Strategic Marketing for the Enterprise Solutions Division at Alcatel-Lucent, speaks to the evolution currently underway at enterprises across the globe. In the article, The Dynamic Enterprise - Leveraging 2.0 Applications, the author states that:
Over the next few months and years, a growing number of mid-market, large and multinational companies will learn that significant gains can be made by integrating tangible and intangible organizational assets - network, people, processes and collective knowledge - to boost productivity and efficiency and achieve a competitive advantage.
Martin also speaks of the need for CIOs to evolve in step with the needs of their evolving enterprise to ensure that the technology is implemented in a seamless way to achieve the goals of the organization:
Their new responsibilities make it necessary for them to look beyond technology toward enabling business objectives such as attracting customers and supporting key processes. Thus, in Dynamic Enterprises, CIOs must carefully tailor their portfolio of projects with an eye to realizing a comprehensive business transformation over a period of time.
Check out the full article here.
Beyond Cost Savings: Leveraging VoIP for Innovation
Even in a slow economy, enterprises need to consider purchasing solutions that will help make them more productive, more efficient and better positioned to ward off competitors.
Alcatel-Lucent has launched a new OmniSwitch 9000E, in a move designed to help enterprises make more money while helping workers improve productivity and customer service. TMCnet had a chance to interview Patrick Thorel, director of large enterprise solutions marketing at Alcatel-Lucent, about the new solution, as well as about how this slower economy is fueling interest in unified platforms and the lure of VoIP for large enterprises.
According to Thorel, VoIP's major draw for those companies isn't cost-savings, but gaining a platform for voice application integration and innovation.
To check out the interview, please follow this link.
Estonia: ALU Helps Elion Deliver Triple Play
Alcatel-Lucent this week announced an agreement with Elion Enterprises Ltd., the largest telecommunications provider in Estonia, to offer an improved triple play (voice, data and video) experience to Elion's customers.
Estonia has one of the highest rates of broadband penetration per capita in the world, and its citizens are savvy consumers of next generation services. Still any technological advance that enables more thorough support and simpler management of the deployed solution is a welcome addition by all parties.
To that end, Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its home network management solution, providing streamlined and automated installation and customer support as well as sophisticated diagnostic information, thus helping Elion reduce its operational costs and improve the quality of experience for its subscribers.
"As they introduce advanced triple-play offerings, service providers open customers' homes to devices and applications that create a more complex home environment. To that end, effective home network management is a must-have," said Lars Boilesen, responsible for Alcatel-Lucent's activities in the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Telecom New Zealand Chooses Alcatel-Lucent for IP MPLS
When faced with the need to accommodate the need to backhaul traffic from its cellular W-CDMA and High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) traffic, Telecom new Zealand turned to Alcatel-Lucent and its IP Multi-Protocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS)-based mobile backhaul solution.
The solution features ALU's pseudowire technology, which is designed to adapts various traffic and media types from the W-CDMA base stations into IP/MPLS. Telecom New Zealand sees this as a benefit for future-proofing their solution, as they transition to a W-CDMA and HSPA deployment. By deploying ALU's solution, the backhaul network will have the flexibility and cost-effective scalability needed to support strong traffic growth and will allow the operator to scale and rapidly roll out innovative mobile broadband services. According to the release: Alcatel-Lucent's pseudowire solution includes the 7705 Service Aggregation Router (SAR) which is deployed in cellular base station sites to consolidate and aggregate traffic. The Alcatel-Lucent 7705 SAR allows service providers to scale traffic and simultaneously flatten their cost-curves for leased bandwidth, therefore improving their competitiveness. The 7705 SAR inherits its software architecture from the widely deployed IP/MPLS Service Router product line, retaining and building on its qualities but at a price and form factor appropriate to the cell site and hubs.
The solution features ALU's pseudowire technology, which is designed to adapts various traffic and media types from the W-CDMA base stations into IP/MPLS. Telecom New Zealand sees this as a benefit for future-proofing their solution, as they transition to a W-CDMA and HSPA deployment. By deploying ALU's solution, the backhaul network will have the flexibility and cost-effective scalability needed to support strong traffic growth and will allow the operator to scale and rapidly roll out innovative mobile broadband services. According to the release: Alcatel-Lucent's pseudowire solution includes the 7705 Service Aggregation Router (SAR) which is deployed in cellular base station sites to consolidate and aggregate traffic. The Alcatel-Lucent 7705 SAR allows service providers to scale traffic and simultaneously flatten their cost-curves for leased bandwidth, therefore improving their competitiveness. The 7705 SAR inherits its software architecture from the widely deployed IP/MPLS Service Router product line, retaining and building on its qualities but at a price and form factor appropriate to the cell site and hubs.
