Lucent's Record-Breaking Reliability Continues to Lead the Industry According to Latest Quality
Report
LISLE, Ill., June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Lucent Technologies' (NYSE: LU - news) flagship product,
the 5ESS® Switch, has the best reliability performance according to analysis of the latest
Federal data on service quality, affirming Lucent's leadership among major switch suppliers.
With only ten seconds of attributable downtime per system per year, the 5ESS Switch
performance was recorded as three-to-four times better than its competitors, according to
analysis of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) ARMIS (Automatic Reporting
Management and Information System) Report. The 5ESS Switch continues to be the industry's
reliability leader -- even surpassing Lucent's own industry-leading performance from the
previous year by more than 50 percent.
The 5ESS Switch set a new record by becoming the only switch in the history of the ARMIS
Report that has achieved less than thirty seconds of downtime per system, per year for four
straight years. Thirty seconds of downtime equates to 99.9999 percent of uptime, also known as
six 9s of reliability.
''The ARMIS Report is the most authoritative source for comparing switching equipment
suppliers in the world because it has a large statistical sample size, uses consistent criteria for
outage reporting, is public and verifiable, and contains major switches deployed in the U.S.,''
said Art Menko, president of BPI Telcodata, a global telecommunications analyst firm.
''One of the best methods of measuring switching equipment reliability performance is analyzing
all host switch supplier-attributable downtime, which includes software, hardware, and
procedural errors,'' he added. ''When you observe all of the vendor-attributable host downtime,
all other competitors had at least three times more downtime than Lucent in 1998.''
The ARMIS Report measures 1998 data supplied by the nation's service providers, as required
by the FCC.
''Network reliability is crucial to global service providers' businesses,'' said Carly Fiorina,
group president, Lucent's Global Service Provider Business. ''Less downtime equates to greater
revenues and increased customer satisfaction, a key market differentiator in today's increasingly
competitive environment. Lucent is continuing to set the world-class standard for reliability.
And with our new 7R/E(TM) Packet Solutions, we are enabling our customers to deliver new
services over reliable, next-generation networks.''
Lucent recently announced the 7R/E Call Feature Server that unlocks today's traditional features
for delivery over IP or ATM networks, as well as the 7R/E Programmable Feature Server that
enables service providers to create customized services. The new 7R/E Packet Driver
transforms the 5ESS Switch into a packet switch. Lucent's 5ESS Switch is the most widely
deployed in the world, providing service in 52 countries around the globe.
''The 5ESS Switch continues to be the leading product in a growing market,'' said Frank
D'Amelio, vice president of product management and marketing for Lucent's Switching and
Access Solutions Group. ''The latest ARMIS results demonstrate our ability to deliver
unparalleled quality. In fact, we are proud to be the first vendor to have achieved and sustained
six 9s of reliability.''
Analysis of the ARMIS results verify the 5ESS Switch was available more than 99.9999
percent of the time in 1998, referred to as six 9s. The industry standard previously had been
known as five 9s, or 99.999 percent availability, which equates to five minutes of downtime per
system per year.
BPI Telcodata, located in Ardmore, Penn., is a worldwide telecommunications information and
consulting leader, serving the carrier, vendor and investment communities since 1984. BPI
Telcodata, publisher of the BPI C.O. Reliability Report, provides industry benchmarking
reports on telephone carrier operations, performance, and network reliability. For more
information, visit telcodata.net.
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 microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the
research and development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies,
visit the company's web site at lucent.com. |
