Alcatel Snaps Up Two US Companies
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French telecommunications equipment vendor Alcatel on Friday snapped up two US technology firms in acquisitions that will add wireless switching and IP conferencing technology to its portfolio.
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(InfoWorld) - Alcatel has reached a preliminary agreement to buy Nortel Network's 3G (third-generation) mobile phone network business for $320 million. Under terms of the proposed deal, Alcatel will acquire Nortel's UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Business) radio access business, including 14 Nortel customer contracts, the companies announced Friday. UMTS is a 3G telecoms standard used in Europe based on W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access). The deal would make Alcatel one of the biggest suppliers of UMTS gear worldwide, giving it contracts with one in four UMTS operators, it said. The companies have signed a nonbinding agreement to merge and hope to close the deal by the end of the year. Closing the merger depends on arriving at a final acquisition agreement, negotiations with works councils, and securing regulatory and other approvals, they said. A "significant majority" of Nortel's employees in the UMTS division would be transferred to Alcatel, the companies said.. The deal appears not to affect Alcatel'sÂ proposed merger with Lucent, announced in April. That deal is due to be voted on by shareholders of both companies on Sept. 7, although some Lucent shareholders opposed the deal and are trying toÂ block the vote in court. Alcatel said it would involve Lucent in the integration of the UMTS business. The sale by Nortel continues aÂ restructuring plan at the companyÂ that has included 1,900 job cuts over the next year. The Canadian company said in a statement its UMTS access business "lacks the scale and momentum needed to become profitable." Nortel said it will continue to develop GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and other mobile technologies, as the company focuses on emerging 4G mobile video and multimedia services. Alcatel sees the acquisition as a way to build on an expanding UMTS market and increase it technology portfolio for major operators such as Orange and Vodafone.
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Alltel Corp.  has stepped up efforts to sell itself to carriers such as AT&T Inc. , Verizon Communications Inc.  and Sprint Nextel Corp. , said people familiar with the matter, as the Little Rock, Ark.-based wireless company tries to chart a new future, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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Small beginnings, big future Comment It became obvious this week that although Alcatel is starting small in WiMAX, compared to say the Sprint contract for Motorola, it is still actively looking to build a head of steam.â¦
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France's Alcatel SA completed its $11.6 billion acquisition of Lucent Technologies Inc. on Thursday, creating a new leading global telecom equipment maker, the companies said in a statement.
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French telecommunications equipment provider Alcatel has received an order worth 270 million euros (460 million Australian dollars, 347 million US dollars) from Australian telecom giant Telstra, the two companies have revealed.
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The deal follows Alcatel&#039;s April plan to acquire Lucent  Technologies Inc. to create the world&#039;s top telecoms gear maker  by annual sales, and comes years after Wall Street analysts  have called for mergers in the crowed sector.
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Newly merged telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent has reported a slump in underlying profits last year and ramped up planned job cuts to 12,500 or 15.6 percent of its global workforce.
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Verizon Wireless, the second-biggest  U.S. mobile phone provider, launched television services on its  phones, run by Qualcomm Inc.  unit MediaFlo, in 20 U.S.  markets on Thursday.
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Quickly following up the announcement by AT&T earlier this month that it would be expanding its 3G network by 80 cities to nearly 350 US Markets, Alcatel-Lucent announced today that it will be in charge of supplying it.
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Alcatel SA   completed  its acquisition of Lucent Technologies Inc.  on Thursday,  creating one of the world's biggest suppliers of network  equipment for mobile phones and high-speed Internet.
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PARIS  --  Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc. overcame shareholder misgivings to win firm backing Thursday for their $10.7 billion tie-up to create a major global telecommunications equipment maker.
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Cingular Wireless, the largest United States cellphone service provider, has agreed to sell its 33 percent stake in Idea Cellular of India for about $200 million to a Malaysian joint venture.
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(InfoWorld) - Lucent Technologies has averted a potentially embarrassing delay of its shareholder vote on a merger with Alcatel,Â settling two suits by shareholdersÂ who said the deal doesn't maximize shareholder value. Lucent and AlcatelÂ agreed in April to mergeÂ into a global communications vendor that would have about $25 billion in annual revenue. Both companies plan to hold shareholder votes to approve the deal on Thursday. Plaintiffs in Resnick vs. Lucent Technologies Inc. wanted to postpone Lucent's vote, and the company was due at a hearing Wednesday in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Union County to fight that move. Another group of shareholders pursuing a similar suit, Asa R. Maley Trust vs. Lucent, also would have joined the hearing. Now Lucent won't have to face the danger of a legal entanglement the day before its planned vote. Both suits were intended as class actions on behalf of owners of Lucent stock. Terms of the settlement Lucent reached with them will be disclosed later, the company said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The Lucent-Alcatel deal would be one of the biggest shifts yet in the consolidation of both service providers and vendors in the telecommunications industry. Both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission have approved the plan, but it still faces opposition from some investment firms and needs the blessing of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. Lucent is based in Murray Hill, New Jersey. The merged company, to be called Alcatel Lucent, would have its headquarters in Alcatel's base of Paris. Â ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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French telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel SA swung to a profit in the third quarter, helped by cost-cutting and a rebound in the mobile communications industry, the company said Thursday.
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Wireless carriers look beyond home markets for new growth.
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Verizon Wireless, the second-biggest  U.S. mobile phone provider, launched television services on its  phones, run by Qualcomm Inc. unit MediaFlo, in 20 U.S. markets  on Thursday.