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Alcatel-Lucent signs China Mobile, China Unicom deals for 8.12b yuan

Alcatel-Lucent has secured 4.53 billion yuan with China Mobile and 3.59 billion yuan with China Unicom in two separate contracts to bring the Chinese infrastructure in line with the country's industry and information technology guidelines by 2017.
Written by Asha Barbaschow, Contributor

Alcatel-Lucent has signed deals with China Mobile and China Unicom in two separate agreements that will see networking upgrades for the telecommunications providers at a combined total of 8.12 billion yuan.

The French-based networking giant has secured 4.53 billion yuan with China Mobile and 3.59 billion yuan with China Unicom in two year-long contracts to provide mobile and fixed broadband access, IP routing, optical networking and network functions virtualization capabilities, and software-defined networking.

"We have been working closely with Alcatel-Lucent on the development of technologies to help the smooth transition to cloud networks," said Li Huidi, vice president of China Mobile.

Alcatel-Lucent said it will support the Chinese companies across the country as they endeavour to meet the "Broadband China" initiative, which aims to see full broadband coverage across the nation's rural and urban areas by 2020.

By 2017, city and many non-urban households are to have access to 100Mbps broadband, residents of major cities are to have an average access rate of 30Mbps, 80 percent of administrative villages are to have fibre coverage, and rural and urban areas are to have complete 4G access, according to guidelines set by the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

This is not the only deal that China Unicom's CU Cloud -- the company's cloud unit -- has signed; it also partnered with US-based Akamai Technologies earlier this year in an effort to help Chinese businesses expand their web presence globally.

Earlier this year, China Mobile recorded its biggest yearly profit drop since 1999, with its revenue plunging 1.5 percent from the previous year. The slump was attributed to the company's enormous expenditures on network development.

Last year, Alcatel-Lucent picked up a trio of contract wins in China, scored exclusive deals for Ethernet core routing with China Unicom and China Mobile, and was selected in two regions from a possible five to supply routing equipment to China Telecom.

Alcatel-Lucent also reported at the time that Asia Pacific was the only region to show an increase of revenue in its Q3 results, posting €721 million, up a massive 22.5 percent from Q3 2013.

The French-based company only has a few months left before it ceases trading as Alcatel-Lucent and instead takes on its new name, Nokia Corporation. Both Alcatel-Lucent and Finnish communications giant Nokia entered into a memorandum of understanding earlier this year in a €15.6 billion deal that will see both companies merge by early 2016.

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