Alcatel SA said Monday that Guangdong Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom Corp. Ltd., had hired it for an undisclosed amount to expand and upgrade its network in order to broaden its Internet Protocol-based data service portfolio.

The Alcatel solution will enable Guangdong Telecom to offer triple play services as well as faster, highly reliable Internet access for consumers and enterprises across Guangdong Province.

This contract was won through Alcatel Shanghai Bell, Alcatel's flagship Chinese company. Guangdong Telecom will deploy the Alcatel 7750 Service Router in seven major cities — Dongguan, Foshan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Shantou.

At present, Guangdong Province has the largest number of broadband subscribers in China, resulting in huge demand for advanced, user-centric data services.

"Optimizing the metro network and consolidating services over a converged IP/ MPLS backbone allows Guangdong to meet the growing network requirements for large-scale deployments of new data services on top of the existing high-speed Internet access services," said Basil Alwan, president of Alcatel's IP activities.

"Building on our recent ChinaNet2, win this contract reinforces our leadership position in China's IP router market and demonstrates customer confidence in our solutions and expertise in helping them grow their business."

Upon completion of the project in June, residential customers of Guangdong Telecom will be able to enjoy new user-centric services such as triple play and advanced Internet access.

Guangdong Telecom will achieve significant cost-savings by delivering all services over a single network infrastructure, instead of multiple platforms as it does now.

(Shenzhen Daily May 11, 2005)