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Technology Stocks : Lucent Technologies (LU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Techplayer who wrote (10885)	11/4/1999 4:38:00 PM
From: KYA27	Respond to of 21876

Lucent Technologies said AT&T is among 60 phone companies that plan to test a piece of super-fast Internet gear Lucent acquired earlier this year. Lucent gained the product, a router that directs traffic on the Internet, with its July purchase of Nexabit Networks for $1.1 billion. AT&T said Global Crossing and the state of Oklahoma already have run tests on the NX-64000, said Mukesh Chatter, vice president of core routing at Murray Hill, New Jersey-based Lucent. The other companies plan tests over the next six months. Successful trials at AT&T would give credibility to a product that Lucent hopes will help it regain the lead in optical networking from rival Nortel Networks. Lucent developed a sophisticated link between the router and its optical equipment that speeds transmission and reduces costs, Chatter said. "Selling to AT&T would be a tremendous validation for Nexabit," said Raj Mehta, an industry analyst with market research firm RHK of San Francisco. Because the technology works best with other Lucent equipment, it could help the company sell more of the gear used to send and boost capacity on fiber, Chatter said. Lucent already has its first purchase order for the NX-64000 and expects at least two more by year-end, Chatter said. The router will start generating revenue in the first quarter of 2000. "A couple of contracts we're bidding on are worth a few hundred million dollars each,' said Chatter, who founded Nexabit and joined Lucent as part of the acquisition. The NX-64000 is one of a new generation of devices known as terabit routers that promise to make the Internet faster and more reliable for sensitive traffic such as phone calls and video- conferencing. Others are being developed by Nortel, Avici Systems, Pluris, and Siemens. The biggest challenge for Lucent when it bought Nexabit was to develop an interface that would let the NX-64000 handle data traffic on the fastest of fiber networks. The lasers used to power such networks are based on technology called OC-192. Phone companies and Internet-service providers need OC-192 interfaces to avoid bottlenecks that slow traffic as new fiber- optic equipment adds capacity to optical networks. Without them, carriers won't be able to provide customers with guaranteed data speeds, analysts said.