To: Steve Fancy who wrote (1806 ) 5/17/2000 5:26:00 PM From: zbyslaw owczarczyk Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 3891
Fast Internet Access: Alcatel ships One Million DSL Lines in first 4 Months of 2000 First quarter 2000 shipments up nearly 750% over same period last year PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 17, 2000--Alcatel (ALA), the world leader in DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) solutions, announces today that it has shipped one million central office DSL lines to its worldwide customer base during the first four months of this year, bringing Alcatel's installed base to a total of 2.7 million lines. In the first quarter of 2000 alone, Alcatel shipped 737,000 lines, nearly 750 percent above the year ago period. Sixty-eight percent of the first quarter volume was shipped to service providers in North America, fifteen percent to service providers in Europe, fifteen percent to the Asia/Pacific region, and two percent to Latin America. Alcatel ADSL SpeedTouch TM CPE shipments reached 190,000 units worldwide in the first quarter of 2000, a 375 percent above the year ago period. In calendar year 1999, Alcatel shipped 1.6 million central office DSL lines to its worldwide customer base. The year-to-date shipment performance in 2000 puts Alcatel on track to conservatively ship about 4 million central office DSL lines by the end of the year. Based on research conducted by Dataquest, Alcatel commands a leading fifty-five percent share of the ADSL central office line market. With the recent introduction of its next generation award winning ASAM, which offers the industry's best balance of performance, density, and power consumption, Alcatel is clearly positioned to expand its market dominance in DSL. ``We are extremely pleased to have reached this shipment milestone so early in the year,'' said Martin De Prycker, President of Alcatel carrier data activities. ``In 1999, the one million line shipment milestone was reached in the fourth quarter. For Alcatel to reach this milestone early in the second quarter of 2000 is evidence of the exploding demand for DSL and Alcatel's market and technology leadership in this space.'' Alcatel defines a central office DSL line shipment as the delivery of an actual central office modem to a service provider for deployment in their network. This metric yields a true measure of supplier market presence and provides a much better indication of market share than other metrics such as ``capacity shipped,'' ``DSLAMS installed,'' and ``number of central offices,'' all of which can count empty slots for modems or unused rack space. The central office line shipment measure also more accurately tracks the service provider community's immediate ability to support DSL subscribers. About Alcatel DSL The world's leading supplier of DSL systems with market leadership in its ASAM and Litespan family of products, Alcatel has been supplying industry-standard end-to-end ADSL solutions since 1996. Alcatel's DSL access solutions are available on a variety of service platforms, including the Alcatel ASAM family; the Litespan NGDLC; and environmentally hardened DSLAM packages optimized for digital loop carrier deployment. The Alcatel ASAM holds over 55 percent of the worldwide central office ADSL market. Alcatel's Litespan multi-service access platform, an integrated NGDLC/DSLAM, has a global embedded footprint of 57 Million subscribers and growing. Alcatel's DSL technology is also offered in an advanced range of customer premises equipment, the Alcatel Speed Touch(TM) family of DSL modems, routers, and integrated access devices supporting multi-line voice and data service over a single telephone access line. About Alcatel Alcatel builds next generation networks, delivering integrated end-to-end voice and data networking solutions to established and new carriers, as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide. With 120,000 employees and sales of EURO 23 billion in 1999, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: alcatel.com Contact: Press Relations Mark Burnworth 972/519-5168 Mark.a.burnworth@usa.alcatel.com or Industry Analyst Relations Julie Buckley 707/792-7820 Julie.Buckley@usa.alcatel.com or Investor Relations Peter Campbell 972/519-4347 Peter.campbell@usa.alcatel.com