Device Arena

AT&T is turning up the heat with the ever-popular BlackBerry® Curve™ smartphone. AT&T and Research In Motion announced today the immediate availability of the BlackBerry Curve 8320 smartphone with built-in Wi-Fi®, which gives AT&T customers with unlimited corporate or personal BlackBerry service plans free and seamless access to thousands of AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots in the U.S.

Available in sapphire blue, the BlackBerry Curve 8320 smartphone makes it easy to connect to home or campus Wi-Fi networks and to automatically connect to any of the more than 17,000 AT&T Hot Spots nationwide. These include Starbucks, Barnes & Noble and thousands more restaurants, airports, hotels and other convenient locations across the U.S. Those customers who subscribe to unlimited corporate or personal BlackBerry service plans can access these AT&T Hot Spots at no charge.

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AT&T today announced that AT&T U-verseSM TV has reached its 1 millionth customer. The subscriber milestone comes less than two and a half years after AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets introduced the only 100-percent Internet Protocol (IP) TV service offered by a national service provider.

IP technology enables state of the art features and functionality, and integration across TV, broadband, wireless and home phone services. Since its market introduction, U-verse TV has received industry acclaim for customer satisfaction, service excellence and innovation. AT&T U-verse TV ranked “Highest in Residential Television Service Satisfaction in the North Central, South, and West Regions,” according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Residential Television Service Provider Satisfaction StudySM. Industry analyst group Frost & Sullivan named AT&T U-verse the 2009 North American Consumer Communications Service Product of the Year, and U-verse Total Home DVR was recognized with a 2008 TelcoTV Vision Award for Service Provider Innovation.

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AT&T is using the latest technology to revolutionize what Dallas-Fort Worth consumers can do with their home phones. AT&T today announced the availability of AT&T U-verseSM Voice in parts of Dallas-Fort Worth, bringing consumers a next-generation digital voice service delivered over the AT&T U-verse Internet Protocol (IP) network.

U-verse Voice brings together your AT&T home phone, wireless, broadband and TV services — all on one bill — with unique features that provide a new level of integration, convenience and control.

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AT&T today announced that it was selected as the Best Wireless Provider in the World for the second year in a row in the 2008 Best in Business Travel Awards, conducted by Business Traveler magazine. Now in its 20th year, the annual survey gives readers the chance to voice their opinion on the companies that have made their business travels more enjoyable. AT&T offers the best global coverage of any wireless carrier and the most world phones among U.S. wireless providers.

“Being chosen as the Best Wireless Provider in the World by Business Traveler readers for a second year in a row is truly an honor,” said Bill Hague, executive vice president of International for AT&T. “We work hard to help keep AT&T customers connected around the world. For years we have offered more world phones than any other U.S. carrier and service in more places around the globe than any carrier worldwide.”

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AT&T today announced the close of its Wayport, Inc. acquisition. The Wayport resources significantly advance AT&T’s strategy for deploying consumer Wi-Fi services that provide broadband access across devices, personalized for the user and location, and innovative business Wi-Fi applications designed to reduce operating costs and increase productivity.

The Wayport deal adds local Wi-Fi network management and infrastructure expertise to AT&T’s world-class communications capabilities and brings its number of domestic hotspots to nearly 20,000 — the most of any U.S. provider. Globally, AT&T has nearly 80,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, including roaming locations.

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As the country’s tough economic times and the holiday season are now overlapping, consumers are looking for every way to save money this December. Beginning today, Kim Danger, founder of Mommysavers.com, is offering consumers several tips in a “Savvy Savings” series, sponsored by Sprint. Over the next few weeks, Kim will explain ways to shave dollars off budgets by becoming more energy efficient, managing credit-card purchases, making the best use of coupons and rebates, and researching long-term contracts — such as mobile-phone bills.

Sprint is currently offering wireless customers its own “economic stimulus package” in time for holiday shopping by giving families an easier way to create savings. Sprint customers enjoy the best value in wireless service today — for families, that can mean at least $240 and up to $1,000 in annual savings based on comparable rate and service plans offered by competitors. Sprint’s family share plans begin at $99.99, with the ability to add up to three additional lines — at $9.99 each. Hot devices for this holiday season include the LG Lotus, Samsung Rant, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro and i570 by Motorola.

“In today’s economic climate, consumers are taking a much closer look at their day-to-day spending habits — and wireless service is no exception,” said Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint. “For most Americans, $240 represents a car payment, a week’s worth of groceries, or a month’s savings for their children’s college. Today’s customers do their research and make their buying decisions based on value and service. Comparing our plans to the competition, consumers will see how Sprint can help families save money in these tough economic times. We aren’t talking about nickels and dimes, but hundreds and even thousands of dollars.”

Sprint

Alcatel-Lucent today announced it has been placed in the leaders quadrant of the recently published Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, Worldwide,”* authored by Drew Kraus, Steve Blood and Geoff Johnson. The report evaluates contact center infrastructure vendors from a global perspective, consolidating regional Magic Quadrants from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia/Pacific into this single worldwide document.

According to the report, “Gartner defines contact center infrastructure as the products (equipment, software and services) needed to operate call and contact centers. This type of infrastructure is used by customer and employee service and support centers, inbound and outbound telemarketing services, help-desk services, government-operated support centers, and other types of structured communications operation. The interactions can be human-assisted or automated self-service, using interactive voice response (IVR) and speech recognition technologies, for example. These channels for interaction use both live agents and messaging technology, and include voice, Web, e-mail, instant messaging, chat, video and mobile devices.”**

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Alcatel-Lucent today announced the appointment of Gabrielle Gauthey, a college member of the French regulatory body, ARCEP, as SVP, Public Affairs. She will join the company on January 1st, 2009 and will report to Ben Verwaayen, Alcatel-Lucent’s CEO.

“I am very pleased to welcome Gabrielle in our company. She is a very well regarded professional in the industry and should help us staying at the forefront of the customer commitment. Gabrielle’s comprehensive experience of the telecommunication industry as well as well as her deep knowledge of our customers’ challenges will with no doubt position the company as a thought leader. In her previous role, Gabrielle has acquired a broad understanding of the market and the role regulation is playing in developing our industry” said Ben Verwaayen.

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Following Helle Kristoffersen’s appointment as head of Global Account and Verticals Solution Marketing in the Enterprise and Verticals organization, Alcatel-Lucent today announced the appointment of Rajeev Singh-Molares, a senior executive with more than 20 years of experience, as SVP, Strategy and corporate development. He will join the company early January 2009 and will report to Ben Verwaayen, Alcatel-Lucent’s CEO.

« I am very pleased to welcome Rajeev in our company. He is a very well regarded professional in the industry and he should help us staying at the forefront of the customer commitment. Rajeev has a comprehensive knowledge of our industry. His experience in helping clients address complex strategic issues of many types - including competitiveness, organizational structure, marketing, industry evolution - and translate these into effective solutions, will be an incredible asset for our company,” said Ben Verwaayen.

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AT&T today announced that it has opened its first data centre in Bangalore, India. The new data centre will help meet the growing demand from multinational customers in India for online data centres with highly resilient facilities, a wide range of IT infrastructure management services, supported by excellent customer services.

The new Bangalore facility is part of AT&T’s previously announced US$1 billion planned global network and portfolio investment for 2008. Data centre customers will have access to a wide range of AT&T’s fully integrated managed hosting, application and networking services to support their data and e-commerce needs. Connectivity to the centre can be supported with AT&T’s existing suite of managed data services in India.

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