Portugal Telecom has signed a "major" three-year agreement with Alcatel-Lucent to extend the capacity of its IP/MPLS network in order to deliver existing and new broadband-based services to its customers.

The telco plans to use Alcatel-Lucent's High Leverage Network (HLN) architecture, and will evolve its converged IP/MPLS network to support new video-rich content and data services.  The platform will also enable Portugal Telecom to implement 100 Gigabit Ethernet, L2/L3 mobile backhaul and IPv6 services that will guarantee available bandwidth and an expanded address space.

“The growing popularity of video content brings new business opportunities, but also requires a thoughtful transformation of the network,” said Alfredo Baptista, CTO of Portugal Telecom.  “The evolution of the existing network architecture and the full support of IPv6 and 100G, with Alcatel-Lucent’s innovative approach, will give us the flexibility to cope with the growing demand for today’s services and the capacity to offer exciting new services to meet our customers' needs in the future.”

Portugal Telecom had passed 700,000 customers for its pay-TV service 'Meo' (delivered via IPTV, satellite and mobile) by the end of the first half of this year, giving the telco a 27% share of the Portuguese pay-TV market.