Alcatel Shanghai Bell Responds to Earthquake

Alcatel Shanghai Bell, which has about 500 employees in Chengdu ( about 159km from the epicenter of last week's massive earthquake), said it is actively involved in repair efforts for communications infrastructure. In the Sichuan province -- the hardest-hit region -- the transmission networks for several operators were seriously damaged and one of the first steps employees took was to transfer transmission equipment into tents to better protect them against aftershocks.


As soon as the news about the earthquake broke, Alcatel Shanghai Bell said it established a 24-hour emergency response team to support customers with disaster response and network recovery efforts. Employees have focused on urgent repair work to restore the communication infrastructure, which should further aid other relief efforts.


On May 15, Alcatel Shanghai Bell helped one service provider repair the first fixed line into the city of Deyang, within a day after the main road into the city was cleared. Alcatel Shanghai Bell was able to restore service to nearly 3,100 lines, helping improve communications capabilities at the earthquake's epicenter.


Close to 100 Alcatel Shanghai Bell employees have been devoted full time to the restoration work. The first batch of equipment needed to restore communications, such as base stations, optical transmission, ADSL and routers, weighing some 35 tons in total, was shipped to the epicenter by the end of last week by Alcatel Shanghai Bell.http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/