LHS, a leading provider of telecom billing and customer care systems and Alcatel-Lucent, has recently announced a fully integrated prepaid and postpaid convergent billing system for present and next-generation voice, data and multimedia services. Alcatel-Lucent will offer the solution to all of its existing customers and new customers to support their transformation to prepaid and postpaid convergence. This solution becomes a major component of Alcatel-Lucent’s customer care and billing portfolio, and adds particular value to customers in emerging markets.

This new joint solution strengthens an existing strategic relationship between LHS and Alcatel-Lucent. In the past, the companies worked on many postpaid customer care and billing solutions together.

The solution combines components of LHS’s iX Series Release 2 system with Alcatel-Lucent’s payment suite. It also integrates all components needed for provisioning, customer care and refilling prepaid telephone cards.

The most recent example of a customer benefiting from this successful cooperation is the Belarus mobile services provider BeST, Minsk, for whom Alcatel-Lucent implemented the BSCS iX billing and customer care system.

“With this new joint solution with LHS, network operators are offered a fully converged all-in-one system, which combines rating, billing, customer care, provisioning and Alcatel-Lucent’s integration services for prepaid and postpaid customers in real time,” said Jean Pierre Gaillat, Professional Services Managing Vice President, OSS/BSS and Software Integration at Alcatel-Lucent. “Communication service providers will benefit from LHS’ best-of-breed product BSCS iX and Alcatel-Lucent’s carrier-grade payment suite, which will help them improve customer retention overall.”

“In addition, the solution is a reaction to the increased billing demands of providers who want to harmonize all processes across prepaid and postpaid segments”, said Wolfgang Kroh, CEO of LHS. “This not only significantly reduces the running costs of telecommunications providers, but also allows them to launch innovative services much faster than before with lower initial capital expenditure.“

LHS is the preferred supplier for a billing solution sold and marketed by Alcatel-Lucent. By selecting components of the widely tested and established billing software BSCS iX of LHS, Alcatel-Lucent lowers the technology and investment risks for network operators. In addition, the integration of the total solution keeps implementation costs low, while customers benefit from the flexibility of freely choosing prepaid and postpaid options. Regardless of the payment option, they can always enjoy the full range of their network provider’s services.

The new software solution will be available in labs for customer testing throughout Alcatel-Lucent and will be introduced for the first time at TeleManagement World May 20 – 24 in Nice, France.

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications, and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved adjusted proforma revenues of Euro 18.3 billion in 2006 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. [All figures exclude impact of activities transferred to Thales]. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com.

About LHS
LHS is a leading provider of telecom billing and customer care systems across the wireless, wireline, and IP telecom markets worldwide.

LHS Business Support Systems offer full convergence on various levels, supporting the complete range of business models both across the mix of fixed and mobile services, as well as prepaid and postpaid services.

LHS builds innovative systems that enable our customers to introduce new services fast, helping drive revenues up, while keeping operational costs to a minimum. LHS was awarded “Best Billing or Customer Care Solution” by the GSM Association in Cannes in 2005, and won the IIR World Billing Awards for its “Overall Best Contribution to Billing” in London in 2005 and 2006.

LHS is an independent software vendor (ISV) with headquarters in Germany, and offices in Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Malaysia, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates. LHS is part of the LHS Group, and LHS Aktiengesellschaft as the Group’s Holding company is a public company listed on the Frankfurter Stock Exchange (LHS400).

For more information, please visit www.lhsgroup.com