HANNOVER, Germany, March 22 – Jazztel plc has selected Lucent Technologies as a supplier of optical access technology for the first high-bandwidth fiber optic network serving small- and medium-sized businesses in Spain and Portugal. This agreement will allow Jazztel to initially reinforce the deployment of metropolitan optical networks in Spain's major cities.
    The contract, valued at $22.7 million over the next four years, includes a 12 million investment in 2001. Lucent has recently finished deploying the main components of the optical networking system that will serve Madrid and Barcelona. The Lucent solution will enable Jazztel to deliver a wide range of state-of-the-art, next-generation offers, such as application service provider services, data centers, storage service provider facilities and fiber-to-business. Jazztel's first customer has already been connected with a fiber-to-customer service.
    "We chose Lucent as a supplier of optical access technology due to the unparalleled performance of its systems, the quality and variety of networking services offered, as well as for the speed and reliability of the deployment," said Antonio Carro, CEO for Jazztel.