The partnership forms part of SSE’s Project Edge programme, designed to increase network coverage across the UK, deliver greater service differentiation and lower costs via network redesign and rationalisation.
Alcatel-Lucent will provide enhanced Ethernet and bandwidth capabilities to allow SSE to meet the growing demand for resilience and security from its customers.
54 additional nodes will also be deployed during phase one of Project Edge, meaning SSE’s UK network will almost double.
Chris Jagusz, MD at SSE Telecoms, said: “We wanted to expand our network presence with a solution that gave us the flexibility to meet all of our customer’s diverse needs, which also delivers the bandwidth, speed and quality that they expect – and with Alcatel-Lucent’s portfolio we can do just that.”
Alcatel-Lucent will also provide annual maintenance and software support for all network nodes.
Earlier this week, Belgian cable operator Telenet deployed Alcatel-Lucent’s IP core router to deliver greater network capacity in the country.