Paris, France – Alcatel today announced that it has been awarded a contract, valued at approximately 120 million euro, to build and deploy a converged high-speed telecommunication network alongside England’s motorways. The project is managed by GeneSYS, the consortium selected to deploy the National Roads Telecommunications Services (NRTS) on behalf of the UK Highways Agency. It will make a significant contribution to safe roads, reliable journeys and informed travellers. Implementation will begin in 2006 with completion of the core transmission network planned for the first quarter of 2007.

The UK Highways Agency currently manages and maintains 28 networks with data coming from over 11,000 roadside devices. Alcatel’s installation of a single, IP-based optical backbone network will improve the transmission of various types of information – such as CCTV footage, variable messaging and electronic signalling – as well as enhance the delivery of commercial services such as emergency telephony.

Alcatel is the telecoms design authority of the GeneSYS consortium – headed by Fluor Corporation, one of the world’s largest publicly owned engineering, construction and maintenance services organisations. The GeneSYS consortium – which also includes HSBC Infrastructure Fund Management, Telindus, Mott McDonald, and PEEK Traffic – will migrate the existing voice, video and data networks onto one converged solution and will be responsible for project management, construction, financing and maintenance of the project.

GeneSYS will provide, coordinate and manage the National Roads Telecommunications Services on a national basis, which will enable the motorist to benefit from new services such as Active Traffic Management or nationwide distribution of CCTV footage to Highways Agency’s customers including travel information providers and navigation companies.

“Alcatel has a strong track record of implementing complex projects that harness powerful state of the art ICT solutions for the 21st century needs of the transportation sector”, stated Jacques Dunogue, Executive Vice President for Alcatel. “We are proud to contribute to this smart road project, which will transform England’s highway system into one of the most advanced in Europe.”

About Highways Agency

The Highways Agency is an Executive Agency of the United Kingdom Department of Transport that is responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the strategic road network in England on behalf of the Secretary of State.

About Fluor Corporation
Fluor provides services on a global basis in the fields of engineering, procurement, construction, operations, maintenance and project management. Headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, Fluor is a a FORTUNE 500 company with revenues of nearly $9billion in 2003. For more information, visit www.fluor.com.

About the Alcatel solution
Alcatel will provide an end-to-end network solution including software and system integration services for all operating and business support systems to enable traffic monitoring from a single network operations center (NOC) located in Birmingham. The solution includes Alcatel’s 1692 Metrospan Edge coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) platform, its 7750 Service Router, and its Omni PCX enterprise Voice over IP switch. The Alcatel 1350 management suite will ensure the management of the new backbone network.

About Alcatel
Alcatel provides communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications to their customers or employees. Alcatel brings its leading position in fixed and mobile broadband networks; applications and services, to help its partners and customers build a user-centric broadband world. With sales of EURO 12.3 billion and 56,000 employees in 2004, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries.