ALCATEL MEETS EXPLODING DEMAND FOR ADSL BY SHIPPING 350,000 LINES IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1999
Paris, 07 September 1999 - Strengthening its position as the worldwide ADSL market leader, Alcatel said today it has shipped more than 350,000 high-speed ADSL lines worldwide in the first half of the year - nearly a four-fold increase in its total ADSL shipments for all of 1998. Alcatel shipped worldwide more than 265,000 ADSL lines to its customers in the second quarter, jumping from 87,000 lines in the first quarter.
"We estimate shipping as many as one million ADSL lines to our customers by the end of the year, reflecting the strong demand by consumers and businesses for the high-speed Internet access that Alcatel ADSL delivers," said Krish Prabhu, chief operating officer of Alcatel Telecom. "And while the U.S. continues to account for the bulk of the ADSL volume, we are seeing a surge in demand in the Asia Pacific region, mainly in Korea and Singapore, and emerging demand in Europe."
According to the project ESS update 39 "Broadband Access systems in Public Networks" from market research firm Dittberner Associates, Alcatel dominates the ADSL-DSLAM (equipment at operator site) market worldwide with 49% of the total number of ADSL lines installed, while no other vendor commands more than 15% in this area.
From a customer premises equipment perspective, Cahners In-Stat's August 1999 report titled "Q2 99 Analog and Digital Modem Market analysis" noted that Alcatel led the market in ADSL modem's shipped with 33 % worldwide.
In a separate development, a new survey from the international market research company Dataquest has also ranked Alcatel as the world leader in the overall supply of ADSL equipment, both terminals and switch ports. In its "Worldwide xDSL Market Share and Forecast 1999", Dataquest says that Alcatel was the ADSL market leader and remained the largest company in the overall market for calendar 1998. According to the market research concern, ADSL accounted for 57.5% of total xDSL revenues in 1998.
Overall, Alcatel has shipped more than 450,000 ADSL lines on the central office (CO) side and more than 180,000 ADSL customer premise equipment (CPE) modems since it began major shipments at the end of 1997.
In addition, Alcatel announces the availability of its first VDSL product, integrated in Alcatel's DSLAM platform. This new product is also based on the robust DMT (Discrete Multi Tone) technology and supports aggregate rates of up to 60Mbit/s. With its extremely high speeds, VDSL is very well suited to provide services with video and multimedia content over twisted pairs for bandwidth hungry customers. Services as digital television, high speed Internet Access, video on demand and high quality video conferencing have been implemented on the system and will be demonstrated at Telecom Geneva in October. "The availability of Alcatel's VDSL shows again Alcatel's commitment to continuous technology improvement" said Krish Prabhu, Alcatel Telecom COO.
An Exploding Global Market
The DSL market, driven by the unrelenting demand for bandwidth and new services, is poised for rapid growth according to the Dataquest report.
In one scenario, says Dataquest, worldwide xDSL CPE shipments will grow to reach 9.77 million units in 2003. In this case, shipments of xDSL CPE will overtake those of cable modems by the year 2001. Meantime, xDSL CO port shipments will reach 7.23 million in 2003.
"As more people worldwide are accessing the Internet, there is an increasing demand for higher bandwidth that is driving both xDSL and cable growth. Although cable is leading for the moment, Dataquest believes that long-term xDSL has even greater potential than cable due to the large number of copper loops deployed worldwide. In terms of individual xDSL technologies, ADSL will be responsible for most of the growth", said Jouni Forsman, Analyst at Dataquest.
About ADSL
ADSL transforms an operator's existing copper twisted pair investment into a multimedia broadband distribution system. Always on and fast, ADSL provides easy and quick links to the Internet when users simply click on a mouse. Working on an existing copper telephone line, ADSL's transmission speed is 200 times faster than traditional analogue modems. ADSL's speeds range up to 8 Megabits per second (Mbps). The Alcatel ADSL system can support high-speed data, while delivering simultaneous basic telephony services. It is offered over the Multi-standard-compliant (T1.413, G.Lite, G.DMT) Alcatel ASAM (ATM Subscriber Access Multiplexer) and advanced range of Alcatel Speed Touch? ADSL CPEs. An active contributor to the various standards bodies creating ADSL standards, Alcatel continues to work to ensure mass-market availability of high-speed Internet access based on a single, standardized ADSL technology. Operators and service providers have the choice of offering a wide range of services to subscribers connected to a single type of ADSL DSLAM, ranging from very high to medium bit-rates.
Alcatel has delivered and installed its ADSL equipment at Singapore Telecom, PT Telecom of Indonesia, Telia in Sweden, BT in the UK, Belgacom, Telefonica in Spain, France Telecom, and Telecom Italia, plus successful implementations in ADSL networks in Canada, China, Korea and Thailand. In the US, Alcatel's ADSL technology is deployed by virtually every former regional Bell operating company - including Bell Atlantic, SBC, Pacific Bell, Ameritech and BellSouth - and by several CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers). Last April, for example, Bell Atlantic finalised an $800 million, five-year deal making Alcatel its primary ADSL vendor.
About Alcatel
Alcatel builds next generation networks, delivering integrated end-to-end voice and data communications solutions to established and new carriers, as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide. With 120,000 employees and sales of EURO 21.3 billion ($25.0 billion), Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries.
Contacts
Press@www.alcatel.com
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