Alcatel To Buy Lucent For $13.4 Billion

French communications-equipment maker Alcatel will buy smaller U.S. rival Lucent Technologies for $13.4 billion to gain market heft and broaden its product mix.
Alcatel, which has expertise in high-speed DSL technology, would gain Lucent’s dominance in wireless technology and contracts with big carriers such as Verizon. Alcatel also gets Bell Labs, Lucent’s historic research arm, which is responsible for technological inventions ranging from transistors and lasers to cellular telephone technology, data networking and communications satellites.
AP: The combined business, to be based in Paris, will work to capitalize on fast-growing converged offerings such as “triple-play”; Internet, phone and TV packages that have become popular in the telecom field, the companies said.

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