Lucent Technologies and Birch Telecom Finalize Five-Year Purchase Agreement
PR Newswire - April 29, 1998 09:02
MURRAY HILL, N.J., April, 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Birch Telecom, Inc. and
Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) today announced they have finalized a five-year
contract for Lucent to be the sole provider of switching telecommunications
equipment and software to Birch, the largest competitive local exchange
carrier in Kansas and Missouri.
Lucent will provide a range of switching and power equipment that Birch
plans to initially install in Kansas City, Mo. and St. Louis. Birch also
expects to install equipment and establish administrative and sales offices in
other cities in Kansas and Missouri, as well as in other Midwestern states.
As Birch's business expands, the value of the agreement with Lucent could
exceed $50 million, said Gary Chesser, senior vice president of operations and
engineering for Birch.
Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Kansas City, Birch is a local and
long-distance service provider that purchases bulk local telecommunications
services and resells them to business and residential customers. Birch will
buy Lucent switching hardware and software after establishing a presence in
specific markets.
"We selected Lucent's switch platform, and the ongoing evolution it
provides, because of the strategic growth benefit it brings to our business
plan," said Chesser. "Through the 5ESS(R)-2000 AnyMedia Switch, Birch will
deliver a range of telephony services such as automatic callback, caller ID,
ISDN and Centrex that sophisticated customers expect."
The complete package from Lucent includes 5ESS(R)-2000 AnyMedia Switches
and network efficiency equipment such as Extended Switching Module-2000s and
AnyMedia Fast Extended Access Interface Units (EAIUs).
Lucent also will provide the GALAXY Power System GPS 4848 to support the
switching equipment. This powering system consists of power plant technology,
switchmode rectifiers and the Galaxy SC Controller.
"Birch quickly has established itself in the telecommunications services
industry in the Midwest," said Bill Plunkett, Lucent's vice president of sales
for competitive local exchange carriers. "We're delighted Birch has selected
Lucent to provide them the ability to deliver an array of voice and data
services to customers. We're looking forward to working with Birch for the
long-term."
Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds
and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications
systems and software consumer and business telephone systems and
microelectronic components. Bell Labs is the research and development arm for
the company. For more information about Lucent Technologies, visit our web
site at lucent.com.
SOURCE Lucent Technologies
/CONTACT: Gordon Zwirkoski of Lucent Technologies, 847-290-3382,
(office), or 847-358-7950, (home office), or gzwirkoski@lucent.com; or
Michelle Mulik of Birch Telecom, 816-842-7560, ext. 221 (office),
or 816-842-7507, (fax), or Mmulik@birchtel.com/
/Web site: lucent.com
(LU) |
