ASIA / Europe : Alcatel-Lucent announced it has been selected by Japan's Softbank Mobile to supply a mobile backhaul solution to help the operator meet rapidly increasing subscriber demand for broadband services on Softbank's third generation (3G) mobile network. Alcatel-Lucent's mobile backhaul solution- which leverages IP/MPLS technology -- is part of Alcatel-Lucent's Mobile Evolution Transport Architecture (META), the industry's most comprehensive vision for the evolution of mobile networks to all-IP.

With 80 percent of Japanese mobile users having already migrated to 3G, mobile service providers need to offer reliable and innovative services in order to remain competitive. By deploying Alcatel-Lucent's mobile backhaul solution to aggregation layer, Softbank can more flexibly and effectively address the rapidly increasing subscriber and traffic.

"Providing innovative 3G services based on a reliable and scalable network is critical to our success in the highly competitive Japanese market," said Junichi Miyakawa, CTO of Softbank Mobile. "Alcatel-Lucent's solution which we adopted can provide not only a customized mobile transport infrastructure that is perfectly suited to our needs, but also the capability and scalability for our evolution to all-IP."

"Alcatel-Lucent's experience in major IP network and service transformation projects is unmatched in the industry," said Frederic Rose, President of Alcatel-Lucent's Asia Pacific activities. "Our backhaul solution will evolve Softbank Mobile's network efficiently and profitably, and at the pace of customer demand."

Alcatel-Lucent's solution includes the 7670 Routing Switch Platform, a highly scalable and configurable multiservice (switch/router) platform - capable of supporting next generation multimedia-rich services -- and the 5620 Network Management (NM) platform. Alcatel-Lucent also will provide professional services such as project management, maintenance, integration and testing. This agreement highlights Alcatel-Lucent's role as a leading supplier of backhaul solutions for 3G mobile networks, and strengthens its position in the Japanese market.

While being able to address the pressing demands for high-capacity 3G mobile backhaul with industry-leading ATM/IMA performance and reliability, the Alcatel-Lucent 7670 RSP allows the extension of its rich IP feature set to support non-stop IPv4/IPv6 and VPNs (6PE, and 6VPE), as well as MPLS pseudowires. As a result, Softbank Japan is able to future-proof its network to meet the continued growth of IP-based applications and services, and allow for the smooth evolution to all-IP.

More than 180 service providers in more than 70 countries around the world have selected the Alcatel-Lucent IP portfolio as key elements of their IP transformation, including massive, multi-year projects at AT&T, BT and Telstra. Alcatel-Lucent's META is the industry's most comprehensive vision for the evolution of mobile networks from TDM to all-IP. META leverages Alcatel-Lucent's unmatched expertise in end-to-end IP network transformation, and leadership in CDMA, 2G/3G mobile, microwave, IP/MPLS, DSL/GPON, SONET/SDH, network management, and services.

About Softbank Group

Softbank Group is the holding company for several businesses linked to Internet culture, technology services and e-commerce. Three companies are at the core of the operation: Softbank BB for broadband infrastructure, Softbank Telecom for fixed communication and Softbank Mobile for mobile telecommunication business.