SAN DIEGO, (IT Expo, Booth 125), Oct. 3 -- Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) today announced its new iMerge Enhanced Business Services solution, which combines the iMerge Centrex Feature Gateway (CFG) with new software features. With this offering, service providers can deliver new productivity-enhancing telephony features to their business customers in a hosted or premises-based environment using any phone system.

The iMerge Enhanced Business Services package includes call and presence management (call logging, screening, redirecting); conference management (notes, subconferencing, click-to-conference); unified messaging management (e-mail, voice, fax, SMS); contact management (click-to-connect, multiple directories, phonebook sharing, synchronization); calendar and meeting management.

``iMerge Enhanced Business Services takes Internet telephony beyond VoIP (voice over Internet protocol), giving business users new ways to communicate productively, increasing reach, responsiveness and professionalism,'' said Ken Arndt, vice president of marketing at Lucent subsidiary AG Communication Systems. ``Service providers can now offer business customers powerful new ways to deliver reliable, robust and secure business applications, which add incredible depth to the user environment for all workers.''

Lucent's iMerge CFG -- which works with any class 5 switch -- allows service providers to use existing central office equipment to extend Centrex features over packet networks, giving users a powerful VoIP service. The gateway combines the inherent reliability of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) with the cost-saving advantages of a packet network. iMerge CFG is a central element of the Lucent 7R/E(TM) Packet Solutions portfolio of products designed to bring packet capabilities to both traditional circuit and converged circuit-packet networks.

Lucent subsidiary AG Communication Systems will demonstrate iMerge Enhanced Business Services in booth 125 at the Internet Telephony Conference and Exposition in San Diego, Oct. 3-5. In booths 127-136, the company is bringing together a group of leading VoIP endpoint vendors to its ``iMerge Application Alley.'' This area will showcase how the iMerge CFG uses a standards-compliant interface to one of the world's most complete set of VoIP endpoints, allowing a superior variety of end-user applications, including multilocation Centrex and virtual office capabilities for road warriors, teleworkers and call center agents.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs and delivers networks for the world's largest communications service providers. Backed by Bell Labs research and development, Lucent relies on its strengths in mobility, optical, data and voice networking technologies as well as software and services to develop next-generation networks. The company's systems, services and software are designed to help customers quickly deploy and better manage their networks and create new, revenue-generating services that help businesses and consumers. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its web site at http://www.lucent.com.

For further information, please contact: Michael Mitchell for Lucent Technologies, +1-623-581-4198 (office/mobile), mm41@lucent.com.