Alcatel announced that it has secured mobile NGN and GSM expansion contracts with China Mobile and China Unicom. Valued at 88 million Euros, the contracts were won through Alcatel Shanghai Bell, Alcatel's flagship company in China.

As part of the NGN contract, Alcatel will deliver its Alcatel 5020 wireless call server, a multi-standard mobile call server controlling distributed media gateways and managing call/session control for voice and data services. Alcatel 5020 wireless call server's distributed architecture consists of deploying the media gateways in close physical proximity to local customers.

This solution will enable China Mobile to reduce the operating costs of its mobile GSM/GPRS networks while optimizing costs for future 3G/UMTS introduction. On the long run, this solution is key to introducing IP-based services such as IP Multimedia Subsystems on the way to an all-IP environment.

Under the terms of the GSM expansion contracts, Alcatel will supply and install its Evolium end-to-end mobile network solution, enabling China Mobile to expand the capacity of mobile networks in the city of Shanghai and the provinces of Gansu, Guizhou, Liaoning, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Chongqing, Zhejiang. China Unicom will use Alcatel's solution to expand the capacity of mobile networks in Inner Mongolia.

Alcatel has been providing mobile communication solutions in China since 1993, when it introduced the country's first GSM system in Zhejiang Province. Currently, Alcatel maintains mobile solutions in over 25 cities and provinces across the country.