DALLAS -- Alcatel (NYSE: ALA) will provide the Alcatel 7750 Service Router (SR) for participation in the industry's first live multi-vendor Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), during MPLS 2003 being held Oct. 26-28 in Washington, DC (www.mpls2003.com). This multi-vendor VPLS network, delivered in conjunction with conference hosts Isocore and service provider Masergy's inCONTROL VPLS service, is a significant step toward wider adoption of VPLS as a mainstream VPN service offering for enterprise customers.

The VPLS service will provide conference attendees and exhibitors with wireless LAN access to the Internet, video streaming, and conference proceedings (live or recorded). The service will interconnect the conference and exhibition site to the offices of Isocore in McLean, Va., via Masergy's inCONTROL VPLS service, making this a true provider provisioned MPLS (multiprotocol label switching)-based Ethernet service.

"This multi-vendor VPLS deployment represents another milestone in Alcatel's leadership in Ethernet services and IP/MPLS technology," said Basil Alwan, president of Alcatel's IP activities. "After three years of cooperative standards development in the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), VPLS is now ready for commercial use, and this multi-vendor demonstration using Masergy's inCONTROL VPLS service reinforces this message to enterprise customers and service providers alike."

VPLS is an emerging metro, national and global Ethernet service, extending a customer's local area network (LAN) to multiple locations by providing fully meshed Layer 2 multipoint connectivity. For service providers, VPLS leverages MPLS to enable a scalable, reliable and operationally efficient solution. For enterprises, VPLS leverages Ethernet to deliver a simple and cost-effective multipoint service with QoS support for different traffic types.

In addition, on Oct. 29 at Isocore's offices, Alcatel will participate in a public multi-vendor MPLS interoperability demonstration, following testing and staging that took place from Oct. 14-17. During this testing phase, the Alcatel 7750 SR interoperated with other vendors' equipment using MPLS to enable point-to-point and multipoint VPN services.

The MPLS 2003 conference will feature tutorials and workshops on MPLS VPNs and service operations, administration and maintenance by leading experts from Alcatel and live demonstrations of the Alcatel 7750 Service Router in booth #104.

The Alcatel 7750 SR offers a generational leap in performance over existing edge routers combined with the service orientation of an IP (Internet Protocol) services platform. The Alcatel 7750 SR gives service providers a cost-effective, future-proof solution for delivering a wide variety of differentiated services from advanced Internet access to multipoint Ethernet VPN over a single network infrastructure.

Alcatel SA