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Lucent Technologies Selected by BellSouth to Help Accelerate the Expansion of Voice Over IP Services for Businesses Lucent providing platform to support central office-based Voice over IP service for BellSouth business customers MURRAY HILL, N.J., May 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Lucent Technologies today announced a three-year agreement with BellSouth that will significantly accelerate the expansion of BellSouth's Voice over IP (VoIP) services throughout BellSouth's nine-state territory. BellSouth currently is deploying solutions from Lucent's Accelerate(TM) VoIP portfolio of next-generation products, services and software to support BellSouth(R) Centrex IP Service announced today (http://www.bellsouth.com/), as part of the company's comprehensive voice and data solutions for businesses. The Lucent Accelerate(TM) Enterprise Solution enables BellSouth to offer central office-based converged communication solutions (Centrex IP) to enterprises seeking to combine voice, data and Internet resources. With the Lucent solution, BellSouth can provide businesses with the same benefits of traditional Centrex service, which include custom calling functionality housed in BellSouth's network instead of equipment at the customer's location, as well as dramatically increase efficiencies and features enabled by harnessing the power of BellSouth's data network. "BellSouth continues to equip its network with the technology to deliver the services and capabilities that customers demand," said Bill Smith, BellSouth's chief technology officer. "BellSouth Centrex IP Service is a key enhancement to the company's voice portfolio and demonstrates BellSouth's commitment to provide multiple answers for businesses as they evolve and converge their voice and data networks," BellSouth is deploying Lucent's EBS Communication Manager, which works with telephony systems to deliver IP-enhanced business applications via a Web graphical user interface, and iMerge(R) Centrex Feature Gateway, which works with any Class 5 switch, and serves as a bridge between circuit-switched networks and IP network infrastructures to deliver Class 5 features and functionality over a packet network. "The Lucent solution means BellSouth customers using central office-based Centrex service can convert their networks to VoIP today without compromising the reliability and feature richness they have come to expect with BellSouth Centrex service," said Vince Molinaro, president of North America sales for Lucent Technologies. "Today's announcement underscores the key role Lucent is playing in helping customers like BellSouth 'accelerate' the deployment of new, exciting IP services and their speed to market." Among the end-user benefits of the Lucent Accelerate(TM) Enterprise Solution are data/voice convergence, greater capabilities for teleworkers and roadwarriors, new options for improving business continuity, and cost savings formerly associated with each move, add or change. Lucent's EBS Communication Manager also will allow BellSouth customers to enjoy a wide range of productivity enhancing services, including find-me/follow-me functionality and remote access to office calling features. Lucent's Accelerate VoIP Solutions Lucent's Accelerate(TM) VoIP solutions help wireline and mobile service providers rapidly deliver profitable Internet Protocol-based voice, data and multimedia services. The solutions support the convergence of traditional voice services with multimedia services, including Web-based features. For more information about Accelerate(TM) solutions: http://www.lucent.com/accelerate. About BellSouth BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and a parent company of Cingular Wireless, the nation's second largest wireless voice and data provider. Backed by award winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the market. Through BellSouth Answers(SM), residential and small business customers can bundle their local and long distance service with dial up and high speed DSL Internet access, satellite television and Cingular(R) Wireless service. For businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers online and directory advertising through BellSouth(R) RealPages.com(SM) and The Real Yellow Pages(R). More information about BellSouth can be found at http://www.bellsouth.com/. About Lucent Technologies Lucent Technologies designs and delivers the systems, services and software that drive next-generation communications networks. Backed by Bell Labs research and development, Lucent uses its strengths in mobility, optical, software, data and voice networking technologies, as well as services, to create new revenue-generating opportunities for its customers, while enabling them to quickly deploy and better manage their networks. Lucent's customer base includes communications service providers, governments and enterprises worldwide. For more information on Lucent Technologies, which has headquarters in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, visit http://www.lucent.com/. DATASOURCE: Lucent Technologies CONTACT: Denise Panyik-Dale, office, +1-410-290-5572, mobile, +1-410-215-4716, , or Mike Alva, office, +1-510-747-5148, mobile, +1-510 449-1902, , both of Lucent Technologies Web site: http://www.lucent.com/ http://www.bellsouth.com/

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