T-Com, the fixed line business unit of Deutsche Telekom, has selected Lucent Technologies to supply IP-based solutions for its next-generation voice pilot project. This will enable T-Com to assess, under live network conditions, how both IP and circuit-switched voice and data calls can be handled over a unified network infrastructure.

The pilot will serve as a strategic platform for defining and testing T-Com's next-generation network architecture as well as future packet-based voice and data services. It is designed also to validate T-Com's migration path from its existing circuit-switched network. Lucent will deliver key technology from its new Accelerate next-generation network portfolio.

"T-Com will be moving to an IP-based network infrastructure at some point in the future, enabling us to reduce operating expenditures. Together with Lucent, we are now testing how IP technology can best fit into our existing voice network, thus leveraging the investment we have taken so far," said Roland Kittel, CTO of T-Com.

By connecting existing IP and voice network, any operator will be able to offer new voice and data services such as unified communications, multimedia messaging, location-based services, IP Centrex, and voice and data virtual private networks.

"With the Accelerate portfolio, Lucent is delivering the future of IP-based networks to service providers as well as its end-user customers," said Dave Poticny, president of Lucent Technologies Europe. "T-Com is a great example of how Lucent is providing value to its customers by delivering VoIP solutions that help them prepare for new revenue-generating services on next- generation networks while leveraging their current infrastructure."

Lucent will deliver its carrier-grade gateway controllers to add voice- over-IP capabilities to the Lucent universal gateways that currently support data applications in T-Com's network. Together, the Lucent gateway controller and universal gateway platforms will be used to set-up an overlay network that connects to T-Com's existing PSTN network and allows calls between the endpoints of both Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)- and IP-based networks.

Thus, the ISDN and IP elements will be connected so that ISDN users can make phone calls to IP phones and vice versa.

In recent years, T-Com has purchased Lucent's Universal Gateway products (MAX TNT and APX 8000), which connect to IP data. It is the upgraded versions of these products that will provide a gateway between the IP and the ISDN network. Lucent has more than 35 million ports of Universal Gateway platforms deployed today worldwide.

The Lucent Accelerate portfolio, based upon Bell Labs innovations, provides the solution building blocks to set-up and transition traditional networks to Next-Generation Networks, build new next-generation networks where none exist and provide additional services to the end user.

Lucent Technologies designs and delivers the systems, services and software that drive next-generation communications networks.