PARIS -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) has signed a turnkey contract with Telstra, Australia’s leading telecommunication and information services company, to lay a new submarine cable network directly linking Sydney to Hawaii. The new submarine network will serve as an added-value vehicle to support Telstra’s IP network transformation strategy and infrastructure expansion.

Greatly increasing international and regional connectivity, the Sydney-Hawaii network will span nearly 9,000 km and ease the delivery of high-quality, innovative services to Telstra’s over 5 million customers. With completion scheduled in the second half of 2008, the Sydney-Hawaii submarine network will deliver a capacity of 1.28 Tbit/s.

Businesses and consumers will benefit from enhanced capacity and reliability to enjoy innovative services such as telecommuting, video conferencing and mobile video applications. As a result, Telstra will be able to further expand its end-to-end offering that ranges from broadband, IP, mobile and intelligent network services, to voice and data network hubs, call centers and advanced multimedia as well as e-commerce applications.

"The Sydney-Hawaii submarine network will enable us to offer improved international connectivity and offer new, high-speed services such as fixed and mobile IP-based services," stated Greg Winn, Chief Operations Officer at Telstra. "Alcatel-Lucent is a valuable partner offering a comprehensive product and service portfolio to support our seamless and cost-effective network transformation."

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU)