Lucent's record-breaking reliability continues to lead the industry according to latest quality report
FOR RELEASE WEDNESDAY JUNE 02, 1999
LISLE, ILL.- Lucent Technologies' (NYSE: LU) flagship product, the 5ESS® Switch, has the best reliability performance according to analysis of the latest Federal data on service quality, affirming Lucent's leadership among major switch suppliers.
With only ten seconds of attributable downtime per system per year, the 5ESS Switch performance was recorded as three-to-four times better than its competitors, according to analysis of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) ARMIS (Automatic Reporting Management and Information System) Report. The 5ESS Switch continues to be the industry's reliability leader -- even surpassing Lucent's own industry-leading performance from the previous year by more than 50 percent.
The 5ESS Switch set a new record by becoming the only switch in the history of the ARMIS Report that has achieved less than thirty seconds of downtime per system, per year for four straight years. Thirty seconds of downtime equates to 99.9999 percent of uptime, also known as six 9s of reliability.
"The ARMIS Report is the most authoritative source for comparing switching equipment suppliers in the world because it has a large statistical sample size, uses consistent criteria for outage reporting, is public and verifiable, and contains major switches deployed in the U.S.," said Art Menko, president of BPI Telcodata, a global telecommunications analyst firm.
"One of the best methods of measuring switching equipment reliability performance is analyzing all host switch supplier-attributable downtime, which includes software, hardware, and procedural errors," he added. "When you observe all of the vendor-attributable host downtime, all other competitors had at least three times more downtime than Lucent in 1998."
The ARMIS Report measures 1998 data supplied by the nation's service providers, as required by the FCC.
"Network reliability is crucial to global service providers' businesses," said Carly Fiorina, group president, Lucent's Global Service Provider Business. "Less downtime equates to greater revenues and increased customer satisfaction, a key market differentiator in today's increasingly competitive environment. Lucent is continuing to set the world-class standard for reliability. And with our new 7R/E" Packet Solutions, we are enabling our customers to deliver new services over reliable, next-generation networks."
Lucent recently announced the 7R/E Call Feature Server that unlocks today's traditional features for delivery over IP or ATM networks, as well as the 7R/E Programmable Feature Server that enables service providers to create customized services. The new 7R/E Packet Driver transforms the 5ESS Switch into a packet switch. Lucent's 5ESS Switch is the most widely deployed in the world, providing service in 52 countries around the globe.
"The 5ESS Switch continues to be the leading product in a growing market," said Frank D'Amelio, vice president of product management and marketing for Lucent's Switching and Access Solutions Group. "The latest ARMIS results demonstrate our ability to deliver unparalleled quality. In fact, we are proud to be the first vendor to have achieved and sustained six 9s of reliability."
Analysis of the ARMIS results verify the 5ESS Switch was available more than 99.9999 percent of the time in 1998, referred to as six 9s. The industry standard previously had been known as five 9s, or 99.999 percent availability, which equates to five minutes of downtime per system per year.
BPI Telcodata, located in Ardmore, Penn., is a worldwide telecommunications information and consulting leader, serving the carrier, vendor and investment communities since 1984. BPI Telcodata, publisher of the BPI C.O. Reliability Report, provides industry benchmarking reports on telephone carrier operations, performance, and network reliability. For more information, visit www.telcodata.net.
Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm for the company.