PARIS, April 8 /PRNewswire/ --

- The Project Will Link Countries in Southern Africa, Western Africa and 
Europe, With High Capacity International Bandwidth

The WACS consortium and Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and
NYSE: ALU) have signed today a turnkey contract valued at several hundred
million US dollars to deploy a new submarine cable network that will provide
the first direct connection between Southern Africa and Europe. Named the
West Africa Cable System (WACS), this 14,000 km-long submarine network system
will bolster Internet and other communications capabilities to and from the
African continent.

The 11 parties that form the consortium are Angola Telecom,
Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, MTN, Portugal Telecom, Sotelco, Tata
Communications, Telecom Namibia, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.

WACS will open access to faster connectivity to support
innovative IP-based services such as video applications for e-education and
healthcare. Meeting the needs for increased capacity along the cable route,
it will further reduce the digital divide, enabling the landing countries to
be served by a new system offering greater capacity and lowering the cost of
broadband access. With commercial service expected in 2011, this new
submarine cable system will also offer route diversity and bandwidth
availability, and the first global submarine fibre connection to Namibia, the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Togo and the Republic of Congo.

Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel-Lucent will provide
connectivity between South Africa and Portugal. With a minimum design
capacity of 3.84 Terabit/s, WACS will connect South Africa to the UK with
landings in Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic
of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Cape Verde, the
Canary Islands, and Portugal.

"WACS has brought together a multitude of nations and some of
the world's most influential telecommunications players in a joint effort to
use state-of-the-art technology in linking more people more efficiently than
ever before. WACS will enable these countries to improve communications and
Internet services that are crucial for a social and economic development,"
said Kobus Stoeder, Chairperson of the consortium's Management Committee.
"Alcatel-Lucent combines field-proven experience, reliability and the
customer focus we need for such an exciting new project."

"Access to advanced technologies is key in some areas of the
world that do not yet benefit from the Internet opportunities," said Georges
Krebs, Chief Operating Officer of Alcatel-Lucent's submarine network
activity. "By meeting the requirements of communications infrastructures in
terms of flexibility and scalability, we help our customers to enhance their
capacity and deliver a more seamless and reliable service so that end-users
can enjoy the best experience possible."

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted
partner of service providers, enterprises 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 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 16.98 billion in
2008 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

PARIS, April 8 /PRNewswire/ --