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ALCATEL WINS SHARE OF AMERICAS II SUPPLY CONTRACT

Paris, March 3, 1998 -- Alcatel and Tyco Submarine Systems Ltd (TSSL) have been awarded a US$310 million contract to supply the Americas II Cable System. This 8,300 km, four fibre pair undersea cable network will connect the USA, the Carribbean region and South America with 40 Gbit/s of traffic capacity by August 1999.

Alcatel will be supplying the cable for the whole network, valued at some US$70 million, which will be manufactured at Alcatel's special undersea cable facilities in Portland, Oregon and in Calais, France.

With a collapsed ring configuration, the Americas II Cable System will use wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), optical amplification and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) transmission technology to meet the high capacity and reliability requirements of the owners. The Americas II owners include : Antelecom, AT&T, MCII, Sprint, Embratel, CANTV, Telintar, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Trescom International, TSTT and Telesur.

Americas II will connect Florida, USA ; Puerto Rico, Martinique ; the US Virgin Island ; Netherlands Antilles ; Venezuela ; Trinidad ; French Guyana and Brazil.