Iceland's Síminn selects Alcatel-Lucent as GPON fiber-to-the-home supplier

Thursday, October 11th, 2007
Alcatel-Lucent logo

PARIS — Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that it has been selected by Síminn, Iceland’s market leader in telecommunication,as its GPON fiber-to-the-home supplier. Alcatel-Lucent’s solution will enable Síminn to deliver advanced broadband services such as high-definition television (HDTV), IPTV, video on demand (VoD) and high-speed Internet. Moreover, Síminn will migrate its traditional voice service to VoIP (voice over IP) for the subscribers on the GPON. The first deployments are starting this month.

“To meet emerging competition, we are now deploying GPON to be able to offer unlimited triple play services to customers in greenfield areas”, said Thor Jes Thorisson, CTO, Síminn. “Alcatel-Lucent’s worldwide leadership in deploying broadband services and their local services will support Síminn in doing this deployment successfully and cost-effectively.”

“Operators today are faced with a very competitive market environment, and the evolution towards fiber deployments is the next logical step to further strengthen their position. Alcatel-Lucent has been the main supplier of DSL solutions to Síminn since 1999, including IP DSLAMs (ISAM), and we are fully supporting the operator’s new programs, said Christian Reinaudo, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s activities for Europe and North.

Síminn will deploy the Alcatel-Lucent 7342 Intelligent Services Access Manager Fiber-to-the-User (ISAM FTTU) following the integration of the Alcatel-Lucent 7302 ISAM into its DSL network. The 7342 ISAM FTTU is the market’s first platform that complies with the GPON recommendations of the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) group. Both the Alcatel-Lucent 7302 ISAM and 7342 ISAM FTTU will be managed by the Alcatel-Lucent Access Management System, the converged access element manager that covers the full ISAM portfolio and provides comprehensive management capabilities.

With world record 79% DSL penetration, Síminn will also leverage its current FTTB/FTTC, which 40% of homes are connected to, to facilitate the new GPON deployment. Síminn offers IP-based TV and radio services in Iceland, featuring more than 60 international TV channels as well as 11 local channels and over provides also over 1200 VOD titles. Additionally most Icelandic radio stations as well as 20 foreign music channels offering different music genres are available. Siminn has shown world record success with its IP-based TV and radio services deployment in 26% of households in Iceland.

Alcatel-Lucent remains the uncontested market leader in broadband access with more than 142 million DSL lines shipped and a cumulative market share of 41%, more than three times that of its nearest competitor. More than 165 customers, including all major services providers in the Nordics, have adopted the ISAM product family – the industry’s first true high-end IP access platform that accommodates a wide range of network flavors and topologies. Alcatel-Lucent is engaged in more than 65 FTTx projects around the world, more than 35 of which are with GPON.