Optics Pioneer, Bob Tkach of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Receives 2008 John Tyndall Award

SAN DIEGO, California, February 27 /PRNewswire/ --     Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced
that Bob Tkach, director of Transmission Systems research at Bell Labs,
received the 22nd John Tyndall Award, the highest recognition in the optical
telecommunications community, during a ceremony at the OFC/NFOEC conference
in San Diego, California. Tkach was recognized for his long and prolific body
of optical networking research that includes inventing many of the
fundamental technologies that are now the basis of high-capacity wave
division multiplexing (WDM) systems. These include:

TrueWave(R) Optical Fiber, now generically known as NZDF (non-zero
dispersion fiber), was a major leap forward in optical fiber and constitutes
a major portion of the long-haul fiber plants in North America.

Dispersion-management, without which optically amplified high-speed
long-haul optical fiber systems would be impossible.

Optical Pre-emphasis, which facilitates equalization of optical powers or
optical signal-to-noise-ratios of all the WDM wavelength channels propagating
in a fiber; and many other innovations.

Bestowed jointly by the Optical Society of America and the
IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS), this award is given annually
to a single individual that "has made outstanding contributions of proven
benefit in any area of optical telecommunications."

The citation for Tkach's award reads: "For pioneering
breakthroughs in high-capacity transmission systems and networks, including
the invention of non-zero dispersion fiber and dispersion management of
optical fiber nonlinearities."

Of the 22 Tyndall Awards given since the program's inception
in 1987, 10 have been awarded to scientists for discoveries and innovations
they developed while at Bell Labs. This is the second year in a row that
Alcatel-Lucent has won this award. At OFC 2007 Emmanuel Desurvire, former
senior director of Photonic Technologies within Alcatel-Lucent's Optics
division and, before that, a research with Bell Labs and the former Alcatel
research center, received the 21st Tyndall Award.

"This indeed is a proud moment for Bob, for Bell Labs, and for
Alcatel-Lucent," said Jeong Kim, Bell Labs president. "It is richly deserved.
For Alcatel-Lucent to receive this award back-to-back further demonstrates
the continuing and outstanding strides made by researchers from Bell Labs in
the field of optics."

During Tkach's long career he has received many awards and
recognitions for his outstanding contributions to the optical networking
community. He is currently the Chair of the Optical Fiber Communications
Conference Steering Committee and has served as the General Co-Chair of OFC,
Vice-President of the Optical Internetworking Forum, Associate Editor of the
Journal of Lightwave Technology, and sat on the IEEE LEOS Board of Governors.
In 1999, Bob received the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award from the Research
and Development Council of New Jersey for inventing Truewave Optical Fiber
and is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, the IEEE, and AT&T.

About John Tyndall Award

John Tyndall paved the way for today's optical communications
by demonstrating that light can propagate through a tube of water by multiple
internal reflections. This effect was the forerunner of today's principle of
guiding light in optical fibers. The IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society
(LEOS) and the Optical Society of America (OSA) jointly sponsor the John
Tyndall Award, which is endowed by Corning Inc.

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides
solutions that enable service providers, enterprise and governments
worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to
end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking,
IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the
end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for
people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130
countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company
has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the
largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the
telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 17.8
billion in 2007 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