Lucent Technologies Expands Optical Manufacturing Capacity With $150 Million
Investment in Plant in Ireland
DUBLIN, Ireland, Apr 12, 2000 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
New Provisioning Center Will Significantly Reduce Delivery
Time to Customers in Europe and the Asia/Pacific Region
Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) today announced plans to invest approximately
$150 million over the next three years to build a 200,000-square-foot extension
to its Blanchardstown facility in Dublin, Ireland. The investment includes
creating 500 new jobs over the same time period.
The facility, which will serve as an optical networking provisioning center for
customers in Europe and the Asia/Pacific region, will reduce shipping time to
these customers from several weeks to several days.
By this summer, the new facility will be equipped to produce approximately $250
million worth of optical networking systems for this calendar year. When
completed in May 2001, it will be capable of producing more than $2 billion
worth of equipment annually.
As part of the expansion, Lucent is launching a major recruiting drive to
attract engineers, technicians, business and information technology
professionals.
The project was announced this morning at Comms2000 - a communications trade
show in Dublin - by the Prime Minster of Ireland, Bertie Ahern, and Ben
Verwaayen, Vice Chairman, Lucent Technologies.
"The explosion of data, voice and video over the Internet is driving Internet
service providers and telecommunications companies to seek out the best in
optical networking technology," said Harry Bosco, group president of Lucent's
Optical Networking Group. "In a marketplace driven by timing, this new facility
will help us more quickly deliver Lucent's bandwidth-expanding technologies to
our customers."
The Ireland facility - which currently manufactures products in Lucent's data
networking portfolio - is an important component of Lucent's overall optical
networking expansion. Lucent continues to increase the output of its Merrimack
Valley operations located in Massachusetts - recently tripling that facility's
capacity for manufacturing high-speed optical systems.
"The Blanchardstown facility will become the international center for the
manufacturing and fulfillment of our optical networking technologies for all
markets in Europe and Asia Pacific," said Mr. Eoin O'Driscoll, vice president,
International Operations, Service Provider Networks, and Chairman of Lucent
Technologies Ireland. "In introducing optical manufacturing to this country,
Lucent is placing Ireland at the hub of a high-bandwidth, high-capacity
technology. Today, optical technology enables carriers to zap information along
a single wavelength of light at a speed of 10 gigabits per second - which is
fast enough to send 130,000 simultaneous phone calls or a two million page
document every second."
Lucent Technologies in Ireland
Lucent Technologies has more than 600 employees at sites located in and around
Dublin. Currently at Blanchardstown Industrial Park, where Lucent will expand
its optical networking operations, Lucent has a plant for its core and access
network solutions and converged-network services platform. Recently, Lucent
moved its Bell Labs GSM software development facility and its regional Shared
Services Centre to Cherrywood Business Park, Dublin. Other sites include its
customer support operations in central Dublin and a manufacturing site for its
SYSTIMAX(R) Structured Connectivity Solutions (SCS) at Bray, Co Wicklow.
About Lucent Technologies
Lucent's Bell Labs has garnered more than 2,000 patents in optical technology
alone. According to Dell'Oro Group, Lucent captured the largest market share -
34 percent (or approximately $1.3 billion) - of the $3.8 billion global DWDM
equipment market in 1999. And with approximately 7,000 systems installed
worldwide, Lucent is the global leader in deploying DWDM technology. For more
information about Lucent's Optical Networking Group, please visit its Web site
at lucent-optical.com.
Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and
delivers the systems, software, silicon and services for next-generation
communications networks for service providers and enterprises. Backed by the
research and development of Bell Labs, Lucent focuses on high-growth areas such
as optical and wireless networks; Internet infrastructure; communications
software; communications semiconductors and optoelectronics; Web-based
enterprise solutions that link private and public networks; and professional
network design and consulting services. For more information on Lucent
Technologies, visit its Web site at lucent.com.
Distributed via COMTEX.
Copyright (C) 2000 Business Wire. All rights reserved.
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CONTACT: Lucent Technologies - U.S.
Ray Zardetto, 908/559-6149 (office)
888/787-2093 (pager)
rzardetto@lucent.com
or
Lucent Technologies - Europe
Yvonne Diaz, 908/559-5545 (office)
ydiaz@lucent.com
or
Ann Fox PR - Ireland
Ann Fox, +353 1 2822632(office)
+353 87 2423438 (mobile)
annfoxpr@eircom.net |
