Etisalat Commences LTE Network

[raednoor]

Etisalat Commences Region's First and Widest LTE Network Rollout in the UAE, signs deal with Alcatel-Lucent

Paris and Barcelona, February 15, 2011 - Delivering its commitment to offer the most advanced Internet services to its customers, Etisalat today inked an agreement with Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) for a planned deployment of the Middle East's first and widest Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in the UAE. Using Alcatel-Lucent's market-leading end-to-end solution, Etisalat will deploy the first commercial LTE network in the Middle East within the first quarter of 2011.

On the occasion, Mr. Mohammad Omran Chairman of Etisalat commented: "As the region's leading-edge telecom service provider, this is a significant milestone for our corporation and we are proud to be the Middle East's first and widest LTE network, thereby fulfilling our promise to continuously deliver superlative communication experiences to our customers every step of the way."

"Over the last year we've witnessed a 200% growth in data roaming traffic. Due to the smartphone boom in the UAE, as is globally, our customers continue to crave for higher speeds and better connectivity. There is an exploding demand for new technologies and large bandwidth to support and enable the surging data traffic", said Marwan Zawaydeh, Etisalat. "We are confident that this advanced next-generation network from Alcatel-Lucent will meet our customers' needs for innovative mobile broadband services."

LTE can accommodate multimedia applications such as video conferencing, high definition content transmission and high speed video downloads from social networks, giving Etisalat's customers unbeatable mobile broadband.

Alcatel-Lucent, as the leading partner will provide Etisalat with a complete end-to-end High Leverage Network solution- including LTE base stations (eNodeBs), all-IP wireless Evolved Packet Core (EPC), a converged end-to-end network management solution and a range of professional services including project management, planning, installation, commissioning and integration.

"This is a crucial step towards the adoption of LTE in the Middle East. Alcatel-Lucent's technical leadership and transformation expertise will help Etisalat unleash LTE's full business potential and deliver a mobile broadband experience far beyond anything that has been seen before in the region", said Ben Verwaayen, CEO, Alcatel-Lucent. "This agreement expands our long standing relationship with Etisalat and is further evidence of the trust they have in our company across multiple technologies and our ability and support the next generation mobile network."

Having being selected so far by 12 customers for commercial deployments, including two of the world's largest service providers, and being involved in over 60 trials worldwide, Alcatel-Lucent has established a strong leadership position in LTE.