Lucent lands $36M Army deal

Lucent Technologies officials announced April 14 that Army officials awarded the company contracts worth $36.3 million to update communications at major service bases.

Lucent employees will install, integrate and maintain a new communications infrastructure that integrates voice switches and high-speed optical and data equipment at Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia, Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, and Husterhoeh Kaserne, Kleber Kaserne and Pulaski Barracks in Germany. The deals come under the Army’s multiyear, multibillion-dollar Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization Program (I3MP), which aims to update the voice and data network infrastructure at important service bases worldwide.

"The bottom line is that by creating robust, next-generation networks we are enabling critical communications and information to flow seamlessly between military bases and, ultimately, to troops in the field," said Rick Miller, president of Lucent Technologies’ Government Solutions business unit, in a company statement.

Lucent officials announced in 2003 that the company received contracts worth $50 million for infrastructure updates at Army installations in North America and Asia. Service officials said last year that, because of funding constraints, they restructured I3MP to only provide communications systems upgrades at major bases instead of all of them.