Lucent wins $300+ million contract for digital cellular telephones

MURRAY HILL, N.J. -- May 29, 1996 -- Lucent Technologies announced today it has been awarded a contract by AT&T Wireless Services to supply more than one million digital cellular telephones over the next two years.

First deliveries under the contract, which is valued at more than $300 million, will be made later this year, according to Lew Chakrin, vice president and general manager of the Global Wireless Products Group in Lucent Technologies' Consumer Products unit.

"We are delighted to be called on to deliver the latest digital cellular technology to AT&T Wireless Services." Chakrin said. "This contract is an endorsement of Bell Labs' innovation and Lucent Technologies' ability to deliver a high quality product."

The portable cellular telephones will comply with the TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) standard for cellular communications and with the IS-136 standard for digital cellular network features.

The first telephone to be delivered is the Lucent Technologies Digital Portable Telephone 6720 that was introduced in March.

Developed by Bell Labs, the 6720 telephone is a "dual mode" instrument, which means it can be used with both analog and digital cellular service. The telephone supports a number of features if they are available on cellular networks. They include short message service (a service that transmits alphanumeric messages which are displayed on the phone screen), a message waiting indicator showing the user voice mail is waiting to be retrieved, Caller ID (a display of the number that is calling), sleep mode (which prolongs battery life), anti-fraud authentication, among others.

The anti-fraud feature, which AT&T Wireless Services and other providers have started to install in digital networks around the country, involves the exchange of a series of secret electronic passwords to validate a customer each time a call is placed or received. The authentication feature is based on patents developed by Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies, and others.

The 6720's digital voice coding and radio receiver functions are performed by microchips provided by Lucent Technologies' Microelectronics Group. The contract is the second major agreement between Lucent Technologies and AT&T Wireless Services this month. Earlier the company received a contract for infrastructure equipment and services for 10 of AT&T's Personal Communications Services license areas.

Lucent Technologies, formed as a result of AT&T's planned restructuring, designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, consumer and business telephone systems and microelectronics components.