MURRAY HILL, N.J. -- Lucent Technologies announced a one-year, $90-million agreement with TyCom Ltd. for optical networking systems and services, with potential upgrades of more than $50 million. The agreement includes deployment of the Lucent WaveStar OLS 1.6 Tb optical networking system in the TyCom Global Network (TGN).
    This is the first optical networking system agreement between TyCom and Lucent for the TyCom Global Network and includes engineering and installation from Lucent Worldwide Services.
    Initially, Lucent will deliver the WaveStar OLS 800G system that will be incorporated in TGN's West Coast routes in the US and in routes in Japan and southern Europe, extending to more than 6000 kilometers (3,728 miles). The system is expected to be deployed by the third quarter of 2002 and will enable TyCom to offer new high-bandwidth capacity to its customers.
    The OLS 800G system has a capacity of 800 Gb/s, equivalent to transmitting 10 million simultaneous phone calls -- or 160 million one-page e-mail messages -- every second. The OLS 800G system, developed by Lucent Bell Labs, can be doubled in size to a 1.6T system without disrupting existing service. The 1.6 Tb system can transmit 1.6 terabits of information per second.