Alcatel-Lucent announced that the company has signed a USD230 million mobile communications network equipment and service contract with China Telecom to provide end-to-end communications solution for the Chinese telecom operator to upgrade the capacity and coverage of its CDMA voice and data networks.

On this contract, Alcatel Shanghai Bell, the Chinese flagship subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, will offer advanced end-to-end CDMA wireless network solutions to China Telecom in 56 cities of nine provinces in China. In addition, Alcatel Shanghai Bell will provide IP service routers and applications platforms and services.

In the project deployment, Alcatel Shanghai Bell will provide a series of base stations that can meet the requirements of different deployment environments to satisfy the demands of different areas from urban areas with heavy usage to rural areas where populations are more dispersed. These base stations will adopt many common hardware and software, which will be easier for maintenance, reduce operating costs and can be upgraded to support the 3G business in the future.

Olivia Qiu, president for Alcatel Shanghai Bell, stated that the active investment of China Telecom in communications infrastructures will provide Chinese users with a series of advanced and practical mobile communications services such as mobile Internet. The signing of the contract enhances the longstanding partnership between Alcatel Shanghai Bell and China Telecom, representing for the company's commitment to assist China Telecom in building state-of-the-art networks to serve the operator's business goals and market strategy. In addition, the cooperation further enhances Alcatel-Lucent's leading position in the Chinese as well as the global CDMA markets.

As one of the world's leading CDMA/EV-DO providers, Alcatel-Lucent occupied over 46% share of the global market in 2007. Besides, Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in 3G network development and deployment, providing commercial 3G systems for more than 70 operators across the world.