PARIS -- Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA), world leader in intelligent optical networking, today announced a supply agreement with NetRail, a telecom service provider wholly owned by REFER, Portugal's Rail Infrastructure Manager. In the course of the Portuguese telecommunications market's liberalization, NetRail is rapidly enhancing and upgrading its existing network infrastructure. As NetRail's sole supplier, Alcatel will supply more than 40,000 kilometers of cabled optical fiber, including both Alcatel's TeraLight(tm) Metro and standard singlemode fibers. TeraLightTM Metro is Alcatel's Non-Zero Dispersion Shifted Fiber (NZ-DSF) optimized for applications in networks covering distances between 70 and 200 kilometers. Designed for operating in systems carrying densely packed data at high transmission rates, TeraLightTM Metro features especially low attenuation, or signal loss. TeraLightTM Metro's efficient and cost saving design allows it to carry optical transmissions without the need for adding several signal regeneration or compensation devices."This agreement is an excellent validation of our new TeraLight(tm) Metro fiber, and the excellence of Alcatel's overall capabilities and responsiveness", said Jacques Blanc, President of Alcatel's optical fiber activities. "Our ability to provide innovative optical fiber solutions that can be cost-effectively upgraded to meet the future bandwidth demand of our customers will ensure that NetRail is well positioned in the Portuguese market."Alcatel SA