Alcatel-Lucent to boost Du’s converged service offerings

Amid growing demand for advanced mobile data and broadband services, United Arab Emirates telecoms operator Du has announced a partnership with Alcatel-Lucent to deploy IP-routing technology to achieve convergence of its fixed and mobile networks. Transformation to a single high performance IP-based network is expected to improve speed and performance of video, social networking and other services, while simplifying operations by eliminating the need to manage multiple networks. Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent has started deploying an IP/MPLS solution, based on its 7750 Service Router (SR), 7705 Service Aggregation Router (SAR) and 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM). It is also providing Du with a set of comprehensive professional services that include project management, network design, installation and commissioning, software integration and operations. ‘Convergence of fixed and mobile networks is a logical evolutionary step in our growth story. This stems from the increasing propensity of our customers to access everything from a single device,’ said Osman Sultan, CEO of Du. ‘We believe Alcatel-Lucent is well positioned to share our vision in bringing the most cutting-edge services available in the UAE, with industry-leading intelligent solutions which will delight and surprise our customers, and further enhance our network efficiency.’