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Paris, March 30, 2005 - Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) today announced that through an innovative Public Private Partnership model, Telekom Austria has started a pilot project offering Triple Play services via fiber optic cable to individual homes and businesses. In addition to being selected as the project integrator, Alcatel has provided its Open Media Suite, the end-to-end portfolio of products and professional services for video delivery, and its NGN portfolio to provide VoIP using a Fiber to the User (FTTU) solution.

The Public Private Partnership model is a new form of cooperation between Telekom Austria, the province of Carinthia and the township of Arnoldstein in Austria. It brings Triple Play services into the households and companies of Arnoldstein via fiber optic cables. The new infrastructure, which is installed directly into the individual premises, enables parallel Internet surfing, television viewing and use of the telephone.

In addition to regular television services, the new offering enables deployment of interactive applications such as Video on Demand or Electronic Program Guides (EPG), all distributed via Alcatel's Open Media Suite.

Traditional telephony services are enhanced by VoIP delivered via Alcatel's NGN portfolio, using the Alcatel 5020 Softswitch Call and Session Controller, and the Alcatel 7510 Media Gateway. The solution is designed to extend the current offering by providing new advanced services such as multimedia telephony or conferencing, to be deployed later this year.

For addressing the e-government sector, innovative and high quality broadband services are in the preparatory phase and in the future should enable Arnoldstein to play a pioneering role in e-government projects in Carinthia.

Parallel to installing pipes for district heating, Telekom Austria will install optical fibers over the next three years within the scope of this pilot project, which relies on the Alcatel 7340 FTTU solution . Via the optical fiber network, about 1,500 households will be provided with environmentally friendly heating and very fast fiber optic connections delivering Triple Play services,.

Telekom Austria COO Wireline, Rudolf Fischer, states: "The openness and flexibility of the platforms and the transmission speeds of this access technology have opened up a completely new dimension of broadband services. We are very focused on content and applications, and the provision of future proof e-government and Triple Play services creates opportunity for capturing new business and residential users."

"With Alcatel's integration experience and state of the art platforms for triple play services, Telekom Austria will be able to provide customers with next generation service bundles combining voice, data and video today, secure in the knowledge that, as new services emerge, the platforms and the FTTU network will be able to support them", said Michel Rahier, Chief Operating Officer of Alcatel's fixed communication activities.