Alcatel today announced it has been selected by SaskTel, one of Canada's most progressive full service communications companies, to upgrade its network with Alcatel's next generation IP solutions. This contract enables SaskTel to efficiently deliver the latest multimedia broadband services over a converged packet infrastructure to its customers in Saskatchewan, and to extend those services cost-effectively to remote communities in this western province.

SaskTel will use the Alcatel 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS) and Alcatel 5620 Service Aware Manager to build a highly reliable, converged packet transport network with IP/MPLS as the core protocol. By taking advantage of Ethernet's economics, this innovative approach offers a significant cost benefit to SaskTel over traditional transport architectures when delivering packet-based services.

"The challenge for service providers like SaskTel is how to cost- effectively deliver advanced, leading edge communications services to a geographically dispersed population," said Kym Wittal, Chief Technology Officer, SaskTel. "The Alcatel solution enables us to build an innovative and flexible network that easily integrates into our network operations center, allowing us to provide advanced multimedia services to residents across our province."

The addition of the Alcatel IP solution complements SaskTel's existing Alcatel solutions, which include IPTV middleware, broadband access, optical networking, ATM, frame relay and TDM solutions.

Alcatel is actively focused on the continued enhancement of its IP portfolio in order to meet the diverse needs of its customer base and ensure high customer satisfaction. This has led to its confirmation by independent industry analysts as a "top-three" provider of IP solutions. In particular, Alcatel has led the industry in the extension of carrier-grade IP/MPLS reliability to Ethernet packet transport enabling service providers to leverage the scalability, ubiquity and cost-efficiency of Ethernet to introduce profitable and compelling new services. To date, more than 50 of the world's leading service providers have selected the Alcatel IP portfolio.