April 26, 2004 Austin, TX -- General Bandwidth Inc. announced that Alcatel has invested $15 million in General Bandwidth. The investment further strengthens the three-year OEM relationship between the two companies and allows for additional development enhancements to their joint fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) and voice over IP (VoIP) offerings.
In December 2003, SBC Communications Inc. announced a four-year primary supplier agreement with Alcatel for SBC's FTTP initiative. As part of that supplier agreement, General Bandwidth provides the packetized voice technology to Alcatel for the SBC deployments.
"Alcatel has a long-standing relationship with General Bandwidth and this investment further aligns our mutual goals," stated Mike Dobbs, Alcatel's senior vice president, access networks for North America.
"This investment is yet another validation of the FTTP opportunity, and Alcatel and General Bandwidth are well-positioned to provide the best possible solution for service providers and their subscribers," said Brendon Mills, CEO and president of General Bandwidth. "In addition, the investment also helps to fuel General Bandwidth's continuing development of VoIP products and services."