AT&T Canada Signs Contract With Lucent Technologies for
First Nationwide ATM Switched Virtual Circuit Network
OCTOBER 20, 1999
MURRAY HILL, NEW JERSEY--
AT&T Canada to Deploy Lucent's Market-Leading CBX 500(tm)
Multiservice ATM Switches
Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) today announced that it has signed
an agreement with AT&T Canada, (TSE/ME: TEL.B and NASDAQ: ATTC)
to build the country's first nationwide Asynchronous Transfer
Mode (ATM) Switched Virtual Circuit (SVC) network using Lucent's
leading CBX 500(tm) Multiservice WAN switches.
With the new Lucent ATM backbone network, AT&T Canada customers
can utilize the circuits to establish network connections on a
call-by-call basis to avoid paying for costly unused bandwidth.
Customers can also tailor each connection to particular network
applications and receive the absolute Quality of Service (QoS)
inherent in ATM for applications such as disaster recovery, data
vaulting, voice, broadcast video and video conferencing. For
example, transporting broadcast video over AT&T Canada's SVC
network will ensure a high bandwidth for delivery to the end user
and high quality that broadcast video demands without
degradation. Lucent's Multiservice switches will enable AT&T
Canada to manage and deliver ATM, Frame Relay and IP services
from a single ATM core network infrastructure.
"Due to the rapidly growing business communications market in
Canada we are seeing an increased demand for high quality data
network services. With SVCs, customers benefit from more
efficient use of bandwidth, on-demand quality of service and
increased network flexibility," said Larry Hudson, president,
operations & chief quality officer at AT&T Canada. "In addition to
providing us with the best-in-class carrier solutions for our
network, Lucent is the only solutions provider that could offer
the network performance and features required to meet the needs
of our customers."
AT&T Canada's SVC service also provides the ability to establish a
customer network within a closed user group providing the highest
level of security. The service also allows customers to choose
the amount of bandwidth and Class of Service for each call.
"AT&T Canada's ATM network will provide the high quality and
performance demanded by their customers and will allow the
company to introduce a variety of SVC capabilities across a
single network platform," said Curt Sanford, group president of
Lucent Technologies InterNetworking Systems. "This is an exciting
project for Lucent and an excellent opportunity to build the first
ATM network to offer SVCs in Canada."
Under the terms of the agreement, Lucent will supply AT&T Canada
with its CBX 500 Multiservice WAN switches and NavisCore(tm)
Network Management System, for end-to-end network management.
Lucent is currently the market-leader worldwide in the ATM, Frame
Relay and Multiservice switch markets according to several recent
leading market research reports from Cahners In-Stat, Synergy
Research Group and Probe Research.
AT&T Canada's agreement with Lucent builds on an existing
relationship. AT&T Canada will be one of the first companies to
deliver the Lucent VPN Gateway. Lucent's VPN Gateway 2.0 Solution
provides industry-leading scalability, manageability and
security, and is an all-in-one, high-performance virtual private
network (VPN) solution that helps customers like AT&T Canada build
highly secure and manageable VPN services. (See press release,
Lucent Technologies Announces Secure Virtual Private Networking
Solution, announced August 4, 1999,
www.lucent.com\press\0899\990804.nsa.html) AT&T Canada also has
Lucent's WaveStar(tm) optical networking equipment and 4ESS(tm)
and 5ESS(r) switches deployed in their network. About AT&T Canada
AT&T Canada is Canada's largest facilities-based competitive
voice, data and Internet telecommunications provider. Created
during 1999 from the merger of AT&T Canada Long Distance
Services, MetroNet Communications, Netcom Canada and ACC
TelEnterprises, AT&T Canada brings together the country's largest
competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), three of Canada's
leading competitive Internet Service Providers (ISP), and
Canada's pioneer in competitive long distance. Deploying the
most advanced fibre-optic networking and digital switching
platforms, AT&T Canada offers customers across the country a full
suite of local and long distance voice, data and Internet services
- with excellent customer service, competitive pricing, and sales
and service locations from coast-to-coast. AT&T Canada Inc. is a
public company with its common stock traded on the Toronto and
Montreal stock exchanges under the symbol TEL.B and on the NASDAQ
National Market System under the symbol ATTC.
Visit AT&T Canada's web site, www.attcana da.com, for more
information about the company.
Lucent Technologies (LU) designs, builds and delivers a wide range
of public and private networks, communications systems and
software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and
microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research
and development arm of the company. For more information about
Lucent Technologies, headquartered at Murray Hill, N.J., visit the
company's website at lucent.com. In Canada, Lucent is
headquartered in Toronto and has 840 employees in major centres
across the country. More information about Lucent Technologies
Canada can be found at its web site at www.lucent.ca. |
