PAETEC, Alcatel-Lucent Deploy Industry Leading Disaster Recovery VoIP Solution

FAIRPORT, N.Y. and MURRAY HILL, N.J., Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- PAETEC Holding Corp. and Alcatel-Lucent announced the first deployment of a new Geographic Redundancy solution that increases the reliability of PAETEC's Next-Generation Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network. This is an evolutionary process at PAETEC to work with our partners to enhance and enrich the survivability and redundancy of all network elements to deliver a complete solution.

Implementing this enhanced architecture in PAETEC's network, already deployed with the industry Gold standard of "Five 9s" reliability, further minimizes the down time that may be caused by a catastrophic incident, such as a hurricane's direct hit on a central office.

In such a situation, restoration could take minutes or hours in the most extreme of circumstances. The Alcatel-Lucent solution can reduce the down- time to seconds. Geographic redundancy means the equipment that is the "brains," or call-control component of the central office, is deployed in two geographically disparate locations. One is "live", and the other is on "stand- by." PAETEC's network has already been architected in a way that allows existing calls to remain connected without disruption in a scenario where the call-control component of the network becomes unavailable. In such a scenario, standing call traffic would continue to be routed over PAETEC's MPLS-enabled, IP network. With the implementation of geographic redundancy, the network can recognize an interruption and engage the back-up network controller or signaling gateway to also allow for the initiation and reception of new voice calls almost immediately.

PAETEC has deployed the Alcatel-Lucent back-up in Illinois and New York. The platform consists of the Alcatel-Lucent Network Controller, Signaling Gateway (SG) and Network Gateway (NG). This solution allows PAETEC to activate the back-up signaling gateway or network controller without dropping existing calls. The transitions to a geographically redundant component can either be automated or performed manually by an administrator when necessary.

Other benefits include: -- Network Gateway failover -- the ability to process new calls in less than 180 seconds -- Signaling Gateway failover -- the ability to process new calls in less than 100 seconds -- No dropped billing records on failover -- Recovery from a major data network and switch disaster -- Software, firmware, and hardware upgrades can be performed on the standby Network Gateway and Signaling Gateway

"This is a groundbreaking achievement which enables PAETEC to provide an industry-leading suite of scalable, diverse, and highly reliable Voice over IP-based products and services," said PAETEC Chief Operating Officer EJ Butler, Jr.

The Alcatel-Lucent platform is a critical part of PAETEC's VoIP solution, as the platform uses Internet Protocol (IP) to pass messages and also provides IP to Time Division Multiplex (TDM) connections.

"Our customers have always counted on Alcatel-Lucent to make their networks reliable and secure," said Cindy Christy, president of Alcatel- Lucent's Americas region. "Our new geographic redundancy solution enables PAETEC to take its disaster recovery to a new level."

About PAETEC

PAETEC is personalizing business communications for medium- sized and large businesses, enterprise organizations, and institutions across the United States. We offer a comprehensive suite of IP, voice, data and Internet services, as well as enterprise communications management software, network security solutions, CPE, and managed services. For more information, visit http://www.paetec.com/.

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications, and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved adjusted proforma revenues of Euro 18.3 billion in 2006 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. [All figures exclude impact of activities transferred to Thales]. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/.

PAETEC Press Contacts Chris Muller Tel: +1 585-340-8218 chris.muller@paetec.com Michael McCullough Tel: +1 404-832-6782 michael.mccullough@edelman.com PAETEC Investor Relations Tom Morabito Tel: +1 585-340-5413 tom.morabito@paetec.com Alcatel-Lucent Press Contacts Denise Panyik-Dale Tel: + 1 908-582-4897 dpanyikdale@alcatel-lucent.com Mark Burnworth Tel: + 33 (0)1 40 76 50 84 mark.burnworth@alcatel-lucent.com Alcatel-Lucent Investor Relations Scott Ashby Tel: + 33 (0)1 40 76 29 90 scott.ashby@alcatel-lucent.com Maria Alcon Tel: + 33 (0)1 40 76 15 17 maria.alcon@alcatel-lucent.com John DeBono Tel: + 1 908-582-7793 debono@alcatel-lucent.com Tony Lucido Tel: + 33 (0)1 40 76 49 80 alucido@alcatel-lucent.com Don Sweeney Tel: + 1 908-582-6153 dsweeney@alcatel-lucent.com