Lucent Technologies Teams With ABC Sports To Transmit Uncompressed HDTV Signals During Super Bowl XXXIV HD Broadcast

As Kurt Warner and Isaac Bruce were teaming up to lead the Rams past the Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV, Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) was teaming with ABC Sports to bring viewers an enhanced high definition television (HDTV) broadcast of the game. During the game, ABC used Lucent's revolutionary WaveStarô OpticAirô system to transmit uncompressed HDTV signals from a remote camera to ABC's HDTV mobile production truck, built and outfitted by Panasonic and located at the Georgia Dome. The WaveStar OpticAir system uses beams of light to transmit high-capacity signals directly through the air. This enabled ABC to minimize the number of times the signals had to be compressed before sending them to a satellite for worldwide distribution - resulting in a higher-quality video transmission of the images captured by the camera. ABC used Lucent's breakthrough technology to transmit ""beauty shots"" during the Super Bowl HDTV broadcast. The HD camera, which was positioned on the roof of the Coca-Cola building one-mile away from the stadium, provided images of the Georgia Dome and the Atlanta skyline. ""Lucent's optical networking innovations are changing the way the world thinks, works and plays,"" said Harry Bosco, Group President of Lucent's Optical Networking Group. ""We're excited about working with ABC to extend the HDTV broadcast of the NFL's biggest day."" With a transmission capacity that is 65 times greater than today's radio frequency solutions, Lucent's WaveStar OpticAir system is an industry first - using a technique known as dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) to transmit information directly through the air over multiple wavelengths - or colors - of light. ""We are excited to be working with Lucent and this cutting-edge technology to extend our HDTV coverage of the Super Bowl,"" said Preston Davis, President, ABC Broadcast Operations and Engineering. ""HDTV takes the viewing experience to an exciting new level, and ABC is proud to be the leader in bringing this innovation to sports fans."" Using Photons To Transmit Higher-Quality Images From Remote CamerasUntil now, when ABC used remote cameras, it had to apply for an FCC license to transmit the signals over a local radio frequency (RF). Additionally, since today's RF solutions have a maximum capacity of 155 megabits (million bits) per second (Mb/s) and uncompressed HDTV signals require a transmission capacity of nearly 1.5 gigabits (billion bits) per second (Gb/s), ABC had to compress the signals before they were sent from the cameras to the trucks. Lucent's OpticAir system helped ABC get around both the licensing issue and the compression issue. With a transmission capacity of 2.5 Gb/s, Lucent's OpticAir system, for the first time, provides the bandwidth necessary to transmit uncompressed HDTV signals directly through the air. Additionally, the use of such ""free-space"" optics technology does not require spectral licenses. Lucent's OpticAir system uses optical HDTV access technology from Artel Video Systems. Artel's Digilink product family provides the HDTV electrical-to-optical signal conversion required for HDTV signals to be transmitted across a free-space optical link.About Lucent TechnologiesBell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies, has garnered more than 2,000 patents in optical technology. In 1998, Lucent was first to market with an 80-channel DWDM system, which can transmit up to 400 Gb/s of information over a single fiber. And with more than 4,000 systems installed worldwide, Lucent is the global leader in DWDM technology. For more information about Lucent's Optical Networking Group, please visit its Web site at http://www.lucent-optical.com. Lucent Technologies designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm of the company.

For more information about Lucent Technologies, visit the Web site at http://www.lucent.com.