China Telecom teams with Alcatel-Lucent for broadband expansion

Alcatel-Lucent, the France headquartered telecoms vendor, has been chosen by China Telecom to significantly expand the Chinese company’s broadband network in a deal worth US$123.95m.

The contract, which was set up by the French company’s Chinese arm, Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, will see it bring FTTH broadband to 31 provinces to support the growth of IPTV, video-on-demand and voice-over-IP (VoIP) services in the country.

As part of the deal Alcatel-Lucent will supply China Telecom with its 7360 Intelligent Service Access Manager system to support EPON and GPON technologies.

Alcatel-Lucent Asia-Pacific Region president Rajeev Singh-Molares said in a statement that the project, “demonstrates our strong and growing leadership position in the FTTH market as we help accelerate the availability of superfast broadband throughout China.”

The Alcatel-Lucent deal will play a key role in contributing to China’s Broadband Strategy, an ambitious plan to bring FTTH to 100 million households and 30 million subscribers by 2015.

China Telecom last week introduced an MVNO into the UK market, becoming the first Chinese operator to launch a service outside of China.

Alcatel-Lucent recently picked up a Telecoms.com LTE Award for Best LTE RAN Product with its LightRadio Metro Cell.