NJ - Lucent Technologies today announced a contract with the United States Department of the Army to integrate and maintain a sophisticated video teleconferencing system at the Fort Drum facility in upstate New York.

The project for Fort Drum, a base that serves as a staging ground for the planning, mobilization and training support for more than 80,000 troops annually, includes a video conferencing solution that increases reliability, security and operational efficiency for its multiple locations.

Lucent Worldwide Services is leading a team that includes video solutions companies VBrick Systems and TANDBERG, to provide an end-to-end videoconferencing system. The new system consolidates scheduling, monitoring, and operations of the conferencing facilities into a single location by using a dedicated optical network.  Lucent provided design services, project management, integration and software development and will perform maintenance and operations support.

-more-

Fort Drum now can conduct simultaneous, secure, high-quality videoconferences with a single operator. By locating the video hardware and network equipment in a central operations center, Lucent was able to increase reliability and security, minimize IT staffing requirements, improve quality of service and reduce costs.

"Lucent has enjoyed a close working relationship with Fort Drum and the U.S. Army for a number of years.  We have a thorough understanding of the network as well as the specific technology needs and demands of the military, " said Rick Miller, president of Government