Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that SK Telecom, Korea’s largest mobile service provider has selected its packet optical transport solution to upgrade the operator’s nationwide wireless data network. The project is currently being deployed.

Due to rapid propagation of smartphones and the increase of mobile Internet utilization in Korea, SK Telecom is expanding its mobile data networks so that end users can utilize the services in a more convenient and reliable way. The new backhaul network will play a significant role in supporting the customer’s high capacity traffic as well as offering of QoS-based services. Alcatel-Lucent’s mobile backhaul solution will help SK Telecom to increase its network capacity for the delivery of its WiFi and WiBro services. In addition, it will support its WCDMA traffic and lay a solid foundation for SK Telecom’s future Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based services.

“With our innovation leadership in optical transport and wireless network solutions, we are committed to support our Korean customers smooth evolution to the LTE era,” said Rajeev Singh-Molares, president of Alcatel-Lucent's activities in Asia-Pacific. “Leveraging our High Leverage Network™ architecture, we will ensure that service providers can build and equip a converged infrastructure that enables scalable and efficient traffic transmission and offering of value-added services.”

Alcatel-Lucent’s packet optical transport solution is based on its 1850 Transport Service Switch (TSS) and is managed by its 1350 Optical Management Suite (OMS). Featuring T-MPLS/MPLS-TP*, the Alcatel-Lucent 1850 TSS provides a graceful evolution path to packet backhaul in support of all mobile generation from 2G/3G to LTE-based 4G. Major global service providers, including BT, China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo have selected this solution for their mobile backhaul and transport networks.

*MPLS-TP is a technology optimized for packet transport but not limited to them; it provides an evolution path from SONET/SDH-based networks to packet transport networks. It enables convergence between the transport and service routers, thus providing the flexibility and scalability required by Ethernet and IP services, while preserving the manageability, resilience, deterministic performance and the OAM features of transport networks.

About SK Telecom

SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM, KSE: 017670) is Korea’s leading telecommunications provider with more than 25 million subscribers, which accounts for more than 50% of the total market. Established in 1984, the company reached KRW 12.10 trillion in revenue in 2009. SK Telecom was the first to launch and commercialize CDMA, CDMA 2001x, CDMA EV-DO and HSDPA networks. It currently provides cellular, wireless internet, mobile media, global roaming service and more. For more information, please visit www.sktelecom.com or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted transformation partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries such as defense, energy, healthcare, transportation, and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP and optics technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 15.2 billion in 2009 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.