Alcatel-Lucent to Build One of Europe's Largest Wi-Fi Networks in Italy

Alcatel-Lucent announced that Tecnofin Immobiliare has selected Alcatel-Lucent and a consortium of sub-contracting companies that includes Essentia and Sensi to deploy the first urban Wi-Fi network in Trento, Italy. The network will enable Trentino province to provide municipalities, businesses and residential users with wireless Internet access as well as voice services. The network will serve public sites in the area, including schools, businesses and individual households, and will deliver broadband services to the local population and visitors.

"Trentino regards innovation as one of the mainstays on which to base its own territorial policies development, by focusing on opening to other realities on a European scale, and on its network development in order to achieve competitiveness, social, economical and cultural growth," said Mr Lorenzo Dellai, Province of Trento's President. "The network Alcatel-Lucent is deploying will provide 1,600 Wi-Fi access points and will be one of the largest in Italy and all of Europe."

Alcatel-Lucent will provide the engineering, integration, installation and commissioning and will be in charge of the operation, monitoring and maintenance of the Wi-Fi network which will employ an existing Alcatel-Lucent optical backbone network. In addition, Alcatel-Lucent will provide its 9500 MXC, a new generation of digital, medium-to-high-capacity, point-to-point microwave radio.

"This complex and sophisticated project is further proof of our global track-record for network and services integration," said Olivier Picard, President of Alcatel-Lucent's Europe and South activities. "This success confirms Alcatel-Lucent's leading position as a turnkey provider of broadband access solutions helping bridge the digital divide. This contract demonstrates the value of our Broadband for All vision."