Enabling end-users to remotely store a 200GB hard drive in only three minutes
Paris and Lisbon, October 27, 2010 – A first in Europe, Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that it has established an agreement with Portugal Telecom to conduct a symmetrical 10Gbps gigabit passive optical network (10G GPON) trial. Using this technology, broadband speeds — 10Gbps in both the upstream and downstream directions — can be used to provide advanced and innovative services to residential as well as business users. Building on the agreement, Portugal Telecom has already started testing broadband at speeds that will allow end-users to remotely store the contents of a 200GB hard drive in three minutes.
The power of symmetrical 10G GPON technology lies in its bandwidth potential, downstream and upstream. The latter will become increasingly important with the emergence of services such as cloud computing, remote storage (leading to a heavy increase in file uploads), “Software as a Service” applications (with software – such as word processors – being run from remote servers instead of a PC), and even the backhaul of mobile traffic including LTE.
“Portugal Telecom has been leading systematically in services and technology innovation, strongly investing in fiber-to-the-home – using GPON technology – to enable its customers to enjoy the highest bandwidths with the best quality of service,” says Alfredo Baptista, CTO of Portugal Telecom. “However, as services and bandwidth requirements keep on evolving rapidly, it is fundamental to continue to assess and evaluate the latest innovations – such as the symmetrical 10G GPON technology that Alcatel-Lucent is providing for this trial.”
In addition, (symmetrical) 10G GPON co-exists with today’s GPON technology on the same access network – meaning that the existing optical fibre outside plant is not impacted when the massive usage of the technology occurs. This is an important consideration for operators around the world who are investing in GPON today.
“Portugal Telecom operates in a highly competitive market and has made very important investments in GPON already. As such, it is of crucial importance to Portugal Telecom and all service providers that a smooth and non-disruptive evolution path to the next-generation GPON technology is confirmed,” said Dave Geary, Head of Alcatel-Lucent’s wireline activities. “Through this symmetrical 10G GPON trial – a first in Europe and building on the GPON partnership that we have in place already – Alcatel-Lucent will work with Portugal Telecom to demonstrate that 10G GPON technology indeed provides the smooth upgrade path service providers have been looking for, supporting their future service offerings in a sustained way.”
Alcatel-Lucent is at the forefront of developing cutting–edge technologies long before they are standardized and received, earlier this year, the FTTH Council’s Innovation Award in the “Technological and Technical Innovation” category for its 10G GPON solution – which is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s Intelligent Services Access Manager (ISAM) IP access platform. Even though symmetrical 10G GPON standards are not yet available, Alcatel-Lucent thus shows it is ready – when needed – to meet the request for higher capacities in its customers’ access networks.
About Portugal Telecom
Portugal Telecom is a global telecommunications operator with around 80 million clients worldwide. In Portugal, where it holds a leading position in the markets in which operates, it provides a wide portfolio of fixed and mobile services, including broadband access, voice and television, acting in all segments of the telecommunications sector: private, residential, enterprise solutions and wholesale.
Portugal Telecom assumes itself as the Portuguese entity with the biggest national and international projection and has a diversified business portfolio in which quality and innovation are determinant aspects, being on the same level of the most advanced international companies in the sector.
Portugal Telecom is ranked on the Euronext and New York Stock Exchange. Information about the company is available in Reuters via the code PTC.LS and PT and in Bloomberg via the code PTC PL.
About Alcatel-Lucent’s High Leverage Network™
The Alcatel-Lucent High Leverage Network™ (HLN) architecture addresses the dual challenges of simultaneously scaling and managing network capacity to meet increasing bandwidth demand while delivering differentiated, revenue generating services. It achieves this by delivering scalable bandwidth at the lowest cost per bit and by embedding intelligence in the network to enable dynamic service creation and delivery. The foundation for the Alcatel-Lucent Application Enablement vision, the HLN architecture collapses multiple complex costly overlay networks into a simpler, fully optimized network that leverages technical innovations and embraces existing environments.
About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted transformation partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries such as defense, energy, healthcare, transportation, and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP and optics technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 15.2 billion in 2009 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.
