PARIS -- Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) today announced enhancements to its 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM) and the certification of Independent Software Vendors and products including InfoVista, Micromuse, ACE*COMM, and the EMC Smarts InCharge suite as part of the Alcatel OSS Partner Program. As a result, carriers worldwide can better meet customer expectations by combining and leveraging Alcatel's industry leading Operation, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P) features for IP and Ethernet services with carrier-grade service assurance solutions from best-of-breed OSS vendors, selected for their proven ability to provide mission-critical applications to Tier one carriers around the world.

Leveraging the OSS interface enhancements to the SAM portfolio and "Plug-and-Play" pre-integration with OSS partner products, carriers can realize clear and rapid benefits to their IP/Ethernet service offerings. For example, they are able to reduce the mean-time-to-repair and service impact of network problems by using root-cause analysis features, automated fault correlation, advanced mediation and sophisticated monitoring capabilities for network performance and revenue assurance. These enhancements allow the network operator to quickly identify and report network and service degradation as well as identify opportunities for revenue recovery and overall cost reduction.

These OSS support features further extend the 5620 SAM's abilities to manage large-scale IP/Ethernet/MPLS environments, which is significant for the rollout of new services such as Triple Play (voice, video and data) and new business-critical Ethernet service offerings. In addition, carriers can now offer their customers the ability to self-monitor VPN services ? such as Ethernet Virtual Leased Lines (VLL) and Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS) as well as IP Virtual Private Networks (IP-VPN). The result is a customer-driven and customer-operated real-time business reporting tool that will be favored by network and business planners within enterprises, and is ideal for enhancing the customer care experience.

As carriers evolve to converged IP/MPLS networks, the 5620 SAM is able to smoothly integrate Alcatel's IP/Ethernet portfolio, which includes the Alcatel 7750 Service Router and 7450 Ethernet Service Switch, into existing multiservice and IP network infrastructures from Alcatel and from other vendors. The Alcatel 5620 Network Manager (NM) already manages the Alcatel multiservice IP and WAN portfolios and is integrated with many of the same OSS partner products as are now supported for the 5620 SAM. As a result, a carrier that is already using the 5620 NM can introduce Alcatel's IP/Ethernet portfolio at minimal incremental cost and with no service interruption.

"Alcatel has a broad installed base of WAN network and service management products. The company is now extending the capabilities of these products to further support the evolution to IP/MPLS and Ethernet networks and services," said Brian Van Steen, Senior Analyst, RHK. "An important aspect of this data evolution that Alcatel is addressing is the end-to-end need for assurance of these services."

"We are pleased to have been certified as an OSS Partner with one of the leading IP vendors," said Jean-Luc Valente, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Strategic Alliances, InfoVista. "We work with the industry's top vendors and found the quality of the Alcatel IP portfolio makes integration with the 5620 SAM straightforward, thanks to their simplified interfaces and supportive professional services. We believe these features will enable a 'plug-and-play' capability for any service provider who selects Alcatel's IP portfolio in conjunction with InfoVista and Micromuse."

"Large-scale deployments of business-critical IP and Ethernet services will no longer be held back by a lack of corresponding OSS solutions," said Basil Alwan, president of Alcatel's IP actvities. "With the added value our OSS partners offer to the 5620 SAM portfolio, carriers can now accelerate the growth of their differentiated service offerings while tightly controlling operational expenses."

Alcatel