PARIS -- Alcatel and Etisalat, the United Arab Emirates' incumbent telecom operator, today announced an agreement to conduct a field trial of Alcatel's Voice over ATM (VoATM) solution in Dubai. The field trial, which is part of Etisalat's Next Generation Network evaluation program in the United Arab Emirates, will start at the end of 2001. Building on Etisalat's installed base of Alcatel 7470 Multiservice Platforms (MSP), the field trial program will be conducted in two phases. Alcatel's VoATM solution, based on the Alcatel 7470 MSP, the Alcatel 1000 Softswitch and the Alcatel 5620 Network Manager, will initially be tested with limited live traffic. After successful operation in this environment, Alcatel's VoATM solution will be integrated into Etisalat's live network, leading to the development of Next Generation Network and services in the United Arab Emirates. Essa Mohammed Al Haddad, General Manager of Etisalat, said: "The evolution towards Next Generation Networks will enable Etisalat to quickly introduce new services and to manage more efficiently the convergence of voice and data traffic in its network. This field trial will allow us to assess the range of benefits that Alcatel's NGN platform offers."Alcatel SA