After one in Antwerp, Belgium, the NGN center is Alcatel's first in Asia Pacific.

The center will be operated and managed by ASB, Alcatel's subsidiary in China.

"The launch of this NGN Reality Center marks an important milestone for Alcatel Shanghai Bell," said ASB's President Gerard Dega.

"It demonstrates our capability to innovate and develop broadband services that end users will value," he said yesterday at a press conference in Shanghai.

The NGN center provides an open service delivery environment for design and testing of NGN-based user-centric broadband services to meet the ever-growing demand for such services in China and the rest of the Asia Pacific region.

Through partnership with key industry players such as IBM and HP, a variety of NGN-based services and applications such as multimedia video conferencing, IP PBX (private branch telephone exchange) and WLAN (wireless local-area network) phones will be commercially ready in the Center.

According to Dega, ASB has so far delivered more than 1 million NGN lines to telecom operators in Asia Pacific.

"Together with our NGN OPEN strategy, I am confident that the new NGN reality center will enable Alcatel Shanghai Bell to better serve our customers' business growth requirements," he said.

Open Path to Enhanced Networking (OPEN) is Alcatel's global strategy for its NGN business.

Alcatel's NGN OPEN strategy supports telecom operators in service innovation, provides them with the flexibility to grow in both fixed and mobile services as well as offering them a cost-effective migration of the installed voice base.

As a result, operators will be able to generate more revenue and increase their market opportunities, Dega said.

"The fast growth of broadband subscribers in China presents huge opportunities for both ASB and service providers," he said.

Predictions from the Ministry of Information Industry, the country's telecom watch-dog, say the broadband market in the country is expected to exceed 20 million subscribers by the end of this year.

To tap market demand better in the Chinese market, ASB in June signed a memorandum of understanding with Shanda Networking Co Ltd, China's leading online game operator, to jointly develop integrated broadband solutions for telecom service providers.

Dega believes the cooperation with Shanda represents a significant step towards helping service providers deliver broadband services through innovative partnerships.

The first of its kind in China, the partnership has been set up to drive the development of broadband entertainment services in this fast-growing broadband market, he said.

Alcatel Shanghai Bell is a leading NGN solution supplier in China and in the Asia Pacific region.

The company was awarded China Telecom's first commercial NGN contract last year.

It has also just closed an NGN deal with Jiangsu Netcom, a China Netcom subsidiary.

(China Daily August 26, 2004)