AT&T Wireless chooses Lucent as infrastructure supplier for Project Angel

Shortly after announcing a licensing agreement with Motorola to supply equipment to service providers outside of the United States (see Motorola to work with AT&T Wireless on Project Angel), AT&T's fixed wireless division (Redmond, WA) signed an agreement with Lucent worth approximately $250 million to build and maintain the voice and data networking infrastructure for its new fixed wireless network. The two-year agreement covers the first phase of the construction of the nationwide network, which will provide local fixed wireless voice and high-speed data communications services to residential customers.

As part of this agreement, Lucent's NetworkCare Professional Services group will provide such services as site acquisition, program management, installation, engineering, testing, integration and maintenance.

As primary data networking supplier for the fixed wireless network, Lucent is providing a solution that enables AT&T Wireless to accept, authenticate, authorize, bill, manage, and route customers' data traffic. The network will include data service nodes located in the central offices and other key points of presence that will consolidate traffic from fixed wireless base stations. The main components of those nodes are Lucent's AccessPoint 1000 multiservice IP access routers and Spring Tide Networks' IP service switch 5000.

The AccessPoint routers have advanced quality of service and bandwidth management capabilities to optimally allocate bandwidth to customers. The Spring Tide IP Service Switch 5000, offered by Lucent through an OEM agreement with Spring Tide Networks, provides subscriber management and value-added Internet protocol (IP) service functions as well as accounting, provisioning, and management services.

Because many customers want access to information and personal accounts on corporate, financial, or other networks that require a dial-up connection, Lucent will include an APX 8000 multiservice access switch in the data service nodes. For voice services, it will provide its 5ESS switching system, which also provides a smooth transition from circuit to packet networks as part of its next-generation 7R/E packet solutions portfolio.

The two companies have begun an aggressive deployment program. This spring, AT&T Wireless launched service in Fort Worth, TX, and by the end of this year, the service will be available to more than 1.5 million households in six major markets, reaching more than 15 million homes in the United States in two years.

Edited by Ellen Jensen
Managing Editor, Wireless Networks Online