Advanced Radio Telecom Corporation Selects Lucent Technologies to Build Wireless Broadband Data Network
MURRAY HILL, N.J., March 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) and Advanced Radio Telecom Corporation (ART) (Nasdaq: ARTT) today announced they have signed a letter of intent naming Lucent as the supplier and integrator of ART's planned wireless broadband data network.
The letter outlines equipment purchase, professional services and vendor financing valued at up to $200 million for the first phase of the network construction, during which Lucent will engineer and build data networks in Seattle, WA and Washington D.C., followed by build-outs in an additional ten cities. Lucent financing is contingent upon various conditions, including ART meeting a series of performance objectives as the network builds progress and raising additional capital. A final contract is subject to the completion of further financing agreements and certain other conditions.
Lucent will supply integrated operating systems that incorporate a full suite of equipment including point-to-multipoint radios, the Lucent MX 1000 edge and GlobeView(R)-2000 core ATM switches, access concentrators, fiber and multiplexer systems and communications software products.
Lucent will also provide professional services and support, integrating all network elements and providing network management services from its Network Reliability Center in Denver and its new NetCare(R) data service center in St. Petersburg, FL.
"Last week, we announced that ART had undertaken a substantially expanded strategy to become a leading provider of packet-switched broadband data services to the vast majority of the nation's businesses users," said Henry C. Hirsch, Chairman, ART. "This letter of intent with Lucent is a major step in carrying out that strategy. We are pleased to be working with Lucent, one of, if not the very best developer and integrator of network systems technology in the world. By using Lucent's expertise to create the network, we will be able to focus our resources on product development, sales and marketing and the delivery of the highest quality customer service."
In February Lucent announced that it would acquire Hewlett-Packard's LMDS (local multipoint distribution service) wireless business and launch a new Wireless Broadband Networks Division in Milpitas, Calif. The division will play a key role in the design, manufacture and deployment of ART's network. The HP acquisition closed this week.
"We are pleased to support ART as they define, create and implement a range of new data services to better serve customers," said Nina Aversano, President, Lucent Global Commercial Markets. "This network will showcase the breadth of our data product portfolio and our unmatched expertise in helping customers to build, manage and leverage networks to meet their business objectives."
Lucent offers a range of intelligent switching, access, optical networking and network management products that enable customers to dramatically improve the performance of their data networks. Lucent's data offers also include NetCare(R), a set of industry-leading professional support services providing consulting, integration, management and maintenance services for multivendor data and video networks, voice systems and networks, and call centers. Lucent also maintains the industry's first state-of-the-art operations center -- the Network Reliability Center -- to provide a wide range of network management services to telecommunications companies in the local, long distance and wireless services markets.
Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronic components. Bell Labs is the research and development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit our web site at lucent.com.
ART (Nasdaq: ARTT), based in Bellevue, WA, provides broadband data services and connectivity primarily to businesses that are off-fiber. ART's 38 GHz broadband spectrum licenses cover 210 markets in the U.S. Additional licenses cover the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. For further information visit ART's web site at artelecom.com.
Information pertaining to ART's business objectives includes forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance. Known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors including without limitation, financial resources and capital requirements, customer demand, technological risks, management of growth, competition and government regulation may cause actual results to differ materially from the future results implied or expressed in the forward-looking statements. Additional information about the most significant of such factors is set forth in ART's 1996 annual report on Form 10-K.
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