Paris and Moscow, June 14, 2011 - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that OJSC Mobile TeleSystems (“MTS” – NYSE: MBT), the leading telecommunication operator in Russia and the CIS, has selected Alcatel-Lucent’s WDM solution for its optical transport network in metropolitan areas. The project will enable MTS to increase its network capacity, flexibility, speed and enhance quality of service.

The resulting increase in the backhaul capacity and transport efficiency allows MTS to optimize the delivery of bandwidth-hungry 3G services and prepare its network for LTE technology introduction.
Under the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its WDM networking solution in four federal districts of Russia: Moscow, the north-west, the south and the Volga region and will cover initially the following four cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Rostov and Ufa.

“To prepare our urban transport network for the challenges of data traffic increase due to development of fixed communication networks, 3G and future LTE introduction we looked for a solution capable to support profitable Internet growth while controlling costs and ensuring a quick return on investments,” said Oleg Larionov, Transport network Director at MTS Group. “Alcatel-Lucent leading-edge solution can help us transform our existing network and scale as demand grows”.

“The tremendous growth of 3G services is the key driver of service providers’ network transformation initiatives and their demand for reliability, scalability and cost-efficiency,” said Alexander Tikhonov, Head of Alcatel-Lucent’s business in CIS. “Alcatel-Lucent’s state-of-the-art optical transport solution meets the MTS need for meeting bandwidth growth, while optimizing its total cost of ownership and expanding the revenue-generating potential with more dynamic service options.”

The Alcatel-Lucent solution is based on its 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) which offers a highly flexible and easy to operate platform for automated WDM networking to dynamically meet traffic demand evolution. Initially operating at low rates, the MTS network can cost-effectively scale up to 100 Gigabit per second (100G). In addition, it will provide a solid foundation for storage area network deployment.