Alcatel Wins Burkina Faso Contract

PARIS -- Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA AND NYSE: ALA) today announced the signing of contracts with ONATEL (National Office of Telecommunications), the first national operator in Burkina Faso, to modernize the transmission network and interconnect Burkina Faso with the neighboring countries (Ivory Coast, Mali, Togo and Ghana) as well as getting access to the high capacity submarine cable SAT3.

Under the terms of these contracts, Alcatel will supply its SDH optical multi-service transmission equipment for the build out of a 1100 km transmission backbone. Alcatel will also supply the cable optical fiber in the eastern side of the country. The new transport infrastructure, which will be supervised by Alcatel's network management solutions (OMSN 1660 SM and TNM 1353 SH) and build a 420 km Fiber Optic Cable back-bone which will help to increase the national network's traffic handling capability and allow interconnection of the network, initially in four other African countries.

These contracts will be completed by mid 2004 and will reinforce Alcatel's position as a turnkey solutions provider in Africa.

"The partnership cooperation between Alcatel and ONATEL goes back more than twenty years in the fixed network," said Justin Thiombano, Minister of Telecommunications in Burkina Faso. "We selected Alcatel for its ability to understand and quickly respond to our business requirements thanks to its local presence."

Frédéric Rose, President of Alcatel's integration and services activitiesadded: "We are very pleased to have been selected by ONATEL for these important projects, which aims to connect different countries in Africa. Alcatel fully supports such initiatives at both network infrastructure and user application levels."

Alcatel SA