A contract between Lucent Technologies and China Unicom was signed on December 6 in Beijing.

According to the contract, Lucent will provide Asynchronous Transfer Mode and Internet Protocol solutions to China Unicom's broadband multi-service national backbone network.

Covering some 100 cities in China, the new network is expected to become China's leading integrated data-voice network for the next generation and will enable China Unicom to give individual customers services such as data, Internet Protocol, voice, fax, video and other feature-rich multimedia services.

For enterprise users, the network will provide less line connection, virtual private network and local area network line connection services.

"We are very pleased to work with China Unicom to build this advanced network," said Mike Chan, chairman of Lucent Technologies in China.