LGS Completes $35 Million European Optical Network Connecting 15 U.S. Army Installations in Germany

LGS, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) dedicated to serving the U.S. government community, announced today it had successfully completed the European Dense Wave Division Multiplexed – Optical Transport Network (DWDM-OTN) for the U.S. Army.

This project, valued at more than $35 million, caps off a three and a half year effort to design, deploy and system test an installation information infrastructure in Europe that will link the forward-deployed soldiers to worldwide Command and Control (C2) and information systems.

The project was managed by the U.S Army’s Product Manager Defense Communications Systems Europe (PM DCS -E) located at Funari Barracks in Mannheim, Germany. PM DCS-E is a subordinate organization to PM Network Service Center (PM NSC) and Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS). The U.S. Army’s 5th Signal command will have operations and maintenance responsibility for this new optical network in Germany.

"We are always working to find new, better and more effective ways to give the warfighter the best capabilities and solutions possible,” said LTC Joseph Dupont. "As we continue to provide ‘Everything Over IP’ in Europe, we needed a more robust network capable of supporting real time services and unified capabilities such as Voice over IP, IP video streaming and conferencing. DWDM provides that robust network.”

The DWDM-OTN Network project, awarded in the spring of 2006, consists of three DWDM rings spanning some 2,100 kilometers connecting 15 access locations supporting Army installations throughout Germany, Italy and Belgium. The U.S. Army selected the Alcatel-Lucent Metropolis Wavelength Services Manager (WSM) for implementing the rings which can provide up to forty 10 Gbps (gigabits per second) of transmission capacity each.

"This project demonstrates our ability to deliver full-scale communications solutions that include both products and multi-vendor network integration services that meet our customers’ needs,” said Ron Iverson, CEO, LGS. "We work in lock step with our customers throughout every phase of the project to ensure the network not only meets, but exceeds their expectations.”

LGS network integration team worked closely with the U.S. Army program manager to design and implement the middleware portion of the transport network, which provides Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) services. The middleware system consists of MPLS/IP routers, and encryption devices that connect I3MP, Army Communities of Interests (COINs) and Legacy networks to the DWDM-OTN network. The middleware network allows the Army to consolidate or eliminate legacy systems in the region and continue the transformation from a TDM to IP network centric architecture.

LGS responsibilities also included designing and implementing a state-of-the-art secured out-of-band (OOB) management system that allows an alternate capability to securely configure all OTN network elements, troubleshoot and resolve network problems.

About LGS

LGS, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, designs and delivers Transformed Communications and R&D-based technology solutions to the U.S. government community. Leveraging the world-class R&D of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, with global reach and expertise, LGS challenges itself to solve the unsolvable and deliver secure, reliable, standards-based solutions to its customers. LGS, is headquartered in Vienna, Va., in the US and with offices in Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey and North Carolina. For more information about LGS visit www.LGSinnovations.com.