Alcatel-Lucent
Encyclopedia
Alcatel-Lucent is a global telecommunications corporation, headquartered in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France. It provides telecommunications solutions to service providers, enterprises, and governments around the world, enabling these customers to deliver voice, data, and video services. The company focuses on fixed
Fixed
Fixed may refer to:* Fixed , EP by Nine Inch Nails* Fixed , a collection of monospace bitmap fonts that is distributed with the X Window System* Fixed, subjected to neutering...

, mobile
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

, and converged networking hardware
Networking hardware
Networking hardware typically refers to equipment facilitating the use of a computer network. Typically, this includes routers, switches, hubs, gateways, access points, network interface cards, Networking cables, network bridges, modems, ISDN adapters, firewalls and other equipments.In the most...

, IP
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...

 technologies, software, and services. It holds Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...

, one of the largest innovation and R&D houses in the communications industry. Alcatel-Lucent has operations in more than 130 countries.

The company is under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 Ben Verwaayen
Ben Verwaayen
Bernardus Johannes Maria "Ben" Verwaayen is a Dutch businessman. On September 2, 2008 the Alcatel-Lucent board of directors appointed Verwaayen as the company’s Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Patricia Russo.-Early life:...

 and the non-executive Chairman of the Board
Chairman of the Board
The Chairman of the Board is a seat of office in an organization, especially of corporations.Chairman of the Board may also refer to:*Chairman of the Board , a 1998 film*Chairmen of the Board , a 1970s American soul music group...

 is Philippe Camus
Philippe Camus (businessman)
Philippe Camus is the current non-executive Chairman of the Board of Alcatel-Lucent. He is a French national.-Biography:Philippe Camus was born in 1948. He is a graduate of the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris and the École Normale Supérieure....

. Verwaayen and Camus joined the company in the third quarter of 2008 after Alcatel-Lucent's first CEO Patricia Russo
Patricia Russo
Patricia F. Russo is an American businessperson most widely known for having served as chief executive officer of Lucent Technologies and its successor, Alcatel-Lucent, a large communications equipment manufacturer. She currently serves on the board of directors of HP, General Motors, Merck & Co....

 and first Chairman Serge Tchuruk
Serge Tchuruk
Serge Tchurukdichian , known as Serge Tchuruk, is a French businessman of Armenian descent. He was the Chief Executive Officer and chairman of Alcatel until the end of November 2006 and was the chairman of Alcatel-Lucent until his resignation in October 2008.Serge Tchuruk was graduate of the Ecole...

 resigned. For 2010, the company posted revenues of €15.996 billion and a reported net loss of €334 million.

History

Alcatel-Lucent was formed when Alcatel merged with Lucent Technologies
Lucent Technologies
Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc., originally Lucent Technologies, Inc. is a French-owned technology company composed of what was formerly AT&T Technologies, which included Western Electric and Bell Labs...

 on December 1, 2006. However, the company as a whole has been a part of telecommunications industry since the late 19th century. The company has roots in two early telecommunications companies: La Compagnie Générale d'Electricité (CGE) and the Western Electric Manufacturing Company.

Western Electric began in 1869 when Elisha Gray
Elisha Gray
Elisha Gray was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company...

 and Enos N. Barton started a small manufacturing firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. By 1880, the company had relocated to Chicago, Illinois and become the largest electrical manufacturing company in the U.S. In 1881 the American Bell Telephone Company — founded by Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....

 and forerunner of American Telephone & Telegraph
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...

 (AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

) — purchased a controlling interest in Western Electric and made it the exclusive developer and manufacturer of equipment for the Bell telephone companies
Bell System
The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S...

.

CGE was formed in 1898 by French engineer Pierre Azaria in the Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 region of what was then Germany and was a conglomerate involved in industries such as electricity, transportation, electronics and telecommunications. CGE would become a leader in digital communications and would also be known for producing the TGV
TGV
The TGV is France's high-speed rail service, currently operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the French national rail operator....

 (train à grande vitesse) high speed trains in France.

Bell Telephone Laboratories was created in 1925 from the consolidation of the R&D organizations of Western Electric and AT&T. Bell Labs would make significant scientific advances including: the transistor
Transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...

, the laser
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...

, the solar cell battery
Solar cell
A solar cell is a solid state electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect....

, the digital signal processor chip, the Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 and the cellular concept of mobile telephone service
Cellular network
A cellular network is a radio network distributed over land areas called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver known as a cell site or base station. When joined together these cells provide radio coverage over a wide geographic area...

. Bell Labs researchers have won 11 Nobel Prizes.

Also in 1925, Western Electric sold its International Western Electric Company subsidiary to ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation is a global diversified manufacturing company based in the United States. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control...

. CGE purchased the telecommunications part of ITT in the mid-1980s.

AT&T also re-entered the European telecommunications market in 1984 following the break-up of AT&T. Philips promoted the venture in part because its PRX
PRX (telephony)
The PRX205 is a processor controlled reed relay telephone exchange developed by Philips Telecommunicatie Industrie BV in Hilversum during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The first public switch was installed in Overvecht in Utrecht in 1972. About half of all sales were in the Netherlands...

 public switching technology was ageing and it sought a partner to help fund the necessary development costs of digital switching. The joint company used the existing manufacturing and development facilities in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

, Hilversum
Hilversum
is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Located in the region called "'t Gooi", it is the largest town in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller villages...

, Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 and Malmesbury
Malmesbury
Malmesbury is a market town and civil parish located in the southern Cotswolds in the county of Wiltshire, England. Historically Malmesbury was a centre for learning and home to Malmesbury Abbey...

 as well as its US resources.to adapt the 5ESS
5ESS Switch
The 5ESS Switch is a Class 5 telephone electronic switching system sold by Alcatel-Lucent. This digital central office telephone circuit switching system is used by many telecommunications service providers.-History:...

 system to the European market The joint venture company AT&T & Philips Telecommunications BV doubled annual turnover between 1984 and in 1987 won major switching and transmission contracts, mainly in the effectively captive Netherlands market. In 1987 AT&T increased its holding to 60% and in 1990 it purchased the remainder of the Philips' holding.

In 1998 Alcatel Alsthom shifted its focus to the telecommunications industry — spinning off its Alsthom activities and changing the company’s name to Alcatel. AT&T spun off Lucent Technologies in April 1996 with an initial public offering.

Facing intense competition in the telecommunications industry, Alcatel and Lucent Technologies merged on November 30, 2006.

At the same time, Alcatel announced that it would swap its shares of Alcatel Alenia Space and Telespazio
Telespazio
Telespazio is a space systems services company, based in Rome, Italy. Telespazio was founded in 1961; however the company as it exists today was formed on July 1 2005 with the merger of the original Telespazio with the space services division of Alcatel...

 for €673 million and a 12.1% stake in Thales, a key player in the French defense industry. This increased Alcatel’s stake in Thales
Thales Group
The Thales Group is a French electronics company delivering information systems and services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets...

 to 20.8%.

Alcatel-Lucent acquired Nortel
Nortel
Nortel Networks Corporation, formerly known as Northern Telecom Limited and sometimes known simply as Nortel, was a multinational telecommunications equipment manufacturer headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada...

's UMTS radio access business at the end of 2006. During 2007 the company acquired Canadian metro WDM networking
Wavelength-division multiplexing
In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths of laser light...

 supplier Tropic Networks, Inc.; enterprise services gateway products developer NetDevices; IPTV
IPTV
Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...

 software company Tamblin; and the telecommunications consulting practice Thompson Advisory Group, Inc. Alcatel-Lucent acquired Motive, Inc., a provider of service management software for broadband and mobile data services in 2008. They formerly had a joint venture with Dutch company Draka Holding
Draka Holding
Draka Holding N.V. is a Dutch manufacturer of electrical cables for the telecommunications, energy, infrastructure and automotive industries, founded in 1910 by Jan Teewis Duyvis. It formerly had a joint venture with Alcatel-Lucent for manufacturing optical fibre, but bought out its partner's 49.9%...

 N.V. for manufacturing optical fibre, but Draka bought out Alcatel-Lucent's 49.9% stake for €209 million in December 2007.

In May 2009 Alcatel-Lucent's stake in Thales was acquired by Dassault Aviation
Dassault Aviation
Dassault Aviation is a French aircraft manufacturer of military, regional and business jets, a subsidiary of Dassault Group.It was founded in 1930 by Marcel Bloch as Société des Avions Marcel Bloch or "MB". After World War II, Marcel Bloch changed his name to Marcel Dassault, and the name of the...

.

Alcatel-Lucent announced it had acquired OpenPlug
OpenPlug
OpenPlug is a French company focused on mobile applications development tools and software for mobile phones. The company was founded in August 2002 by Eric Baissus and David Lamy-Charrier...

 on September, 1 2010.

In October 2011, Alcatel-Lucent has sold its call-center services business of the Genesys unit to Permira
Permira
Permira is a United Kingdom-based private equity firm with global reach. The firm advises funds with a total committed capital of approximately €20 billion....

, the private equity group, for $1.5 billion or the same amount the company bought the business in 2000. Alcatel-Lucent much-needed funding for the Franco-American business, which has made losses for the past 5 years.

Organization

The company's global headquarters is in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France. There are regional groups for the Americas, Asia Pacific & China, and Europe, Middle East & Africa.. Middle East and Africa Headquarters are at Smart Village, Giza, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

.

Applications Division

Approximately half of the Application Division consists of the enterprise business and Network Applications. Services include subscriber data management, digital media, payment sorting, and customer experience management for telecoms. Content delivery networks (CDN) are becoming a increasingly large part of the Division as network traffic complexity calls for denser routers.

Network Division

Alcatel-Lucent wireline network services provides optical networking, service provider routing, and broadband access to the telecommunications industry, and other industries that require networking capabilitie, such as the energy and transportation industry. Wireless services emphasize growing backhaul and router businesses as companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint are focused on 4G/LTE rollout.
  • Applications Group - Develops software for Carriers such as digital home management and rich media applications and for Enterprises to enable deployment of applications to transform their customer service capabilities.
  • Networks Group - Telecommunications products for wireline, wireless and convergent service providers.
  • Enterprise and Strategic Industries Group - Provides enterprises with communications solutions such as unified communications and contact centers, IP telephony, performance management software and security solutions.
  • Services Group - Offers professional telecommunications services to carriers that encompass the entire network lifecycle.

7750 Service Router

7750 Service Router is a series of multiservice edge routers designed and manufactured by Alcatel Lucent. It was introduced by Alcatel-Lucent in 2003, and employs a FlexPath Network Processor.

Features supported in 7750 service routers cover advanced IP
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...

/MPLS
Mpls
MPLS or Mpls can refer to:* Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States* Multiprotocol Label Switching, a data-carrying mechanism in computer networking...

 edge routing
Routing
Routing is the process of selecting paths in a network along which to send network traffic. Routing is performed for many kinds of networks, including the telephone network , electronic data networks , and transportation networks...

 services (including IPv6
IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6 is a version of the Internet Protocol . It is designed to succeed the Internet Protocol version 4...

), network-based security (L2 and L3 filtering), real-time services (voice and video) and accounting. 7750 service routers support high availability
High availability
High availability is a system design approach and associated service implementation that ensures a prearranged level of operational performance will be met during a contractual measurement period....

 features like non stop routing, non stop forwarding or graceful restart. These multiservice router series is designed for the edge of provider networks, but can also operate in small or medium core networks. BGP is fully supported and 7750 can be used as peering or route reflector device.

7750 platform is also suitable for aggregation end user connections as it support wide range of access technologies: ATM
Asynchronous Transfer Mode
Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a standard switching technique designed to unify telecommunication and computer networks. It uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing, and it encodes data into small, fixed-sized cells. This differs from approaches such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet that...

, Frame Relay
Frame relay
Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network technology that specifies the physical and logical link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology...

, Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....

 and TDM (SONET
Sonet
Sonet may refer to:* Sonet Records, European record label* Synchronous optical networking * Saab Sonett...

/SDH
SDH
SDH may refer to:* Synchronous Digital Hierarchy, in telecommunications* Secure Digital Host Controller, in computing* Saradhna, a railway station in India* The Shubnikov-De Haas effect, also see Fermi surface...

).

It also supports Layer 2 virtual circuits, Layer 2 VPNs, Layer 2.5 Interworking VPNs, Layer 3 2547 VPNs, VPLS, GRE, IP over IP and other tunneling
Tunneling
Tunneling may refer to:* Digging tunnels * Quantum tunneling, the quantum-mechanical effect where a particle crosses through a classically-forbidden potential energy barrier...

 mechanisms.

It supports hierarchical Quality of Service
Quality of service
The quality of service refers to several related aspects of telephony and computer networks that allow the transport of traffic with special requirements...

 per port, per logical circuit (DLCI, VC/VP, VLAN), and per channel (to DS0) for traffic prioritization. These QoS functions include classification, rate limiting
Rate limiting
In computer networks, rate limiting is used to control the rate of traffic sent or received on a network interface. Traffic that is less than or equal to the specified rate is sent, whereas traffic that exceeds the rate is dropped or delayed...

, shaping, weighted round-robin scheduling
Weighted round robin
Weighted round robin is a scheduling discipline. Each packet flow or connection has its own packet queue in a network interface card. It is the simplest approximation of generalized processor sharing...

 and strict priority queuing
Priority queue
A priority queue is an abstract data type in computer programming.It is exactly like a regular queue or stack data structure, but additionally, each element is associated with a "priority"....

.

7750 also supports network filtering capabilities, unicast
Unicast
right|200pxIn computer networking, unicast transmission is the sending of messages to a single network destination identified by a unique address.-Addressing methodologies:...

 reverse path forwarding
Reverse path forwarding
Reverse path forwarding is a technique used in modern routers for the purposes of ensuring loop-free forwarding of multicast packets in multicast routing and to help prevent IP address spoofing in unicast routing.- Multicast RPF :...

 and rate limiting
Rate limiting
In computer networks, rate limiting is used to control the rate of traffic sent or received on a network interface. Traffic that is less than or equal to the specified rate is sent, whereas traffic that exceeds the rate is dropped or delayed...

. The 7750 platform can also provide services such as high-speed NAT
Nat
Nat or NAT may refer to:* Nat., an abbreviation for Natural* Nat , a Burmese spirit worshipped in Myanmar in conjunction with Buddhism...

, stateful firewall
Stateful firewall
In computing, a stateful firewall is a firewall that keeps track of the state of network connections traveling across it. The firewall is programmed to distinguish legitimate packets for different types of connections...

 and cFlow accounting.

Management Committee

  • Tom Burns, Entreprise
  • Stephen A. Carter
    Stephen A. Carter
    Stephen Andrew Carter, Baron Carter of Barnes, CBE , is a Scottish businessman and politician who was previously Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting in the United Kingdom Government.-Biography:...

    , Europe, Middle East & Africa and Corporate Marketing & Communications
  • Robin Dargue, Business and IT Transformation
  • John Dickson, Operations
  • Kenneth Frank, Reliance Industries Joint Initiative
  • Adolfo Hernandez, Software, Services & Solutions and Strategic Industries
  • Christel Heydemann, Human Resources & Transformation
  • Philippe Keryer, Networks
  • Jeong Kim, Bell Labs and Corporate Strategy
  • George Nazi, Global Customer Delivery
  • Rajeev Singh-Molares, Asia-Pacific
  • Paul Tufano, Chief Financial Officer
  • Robert Vrij, Americas and Strategic Alliances

Board of Directors

  • Philippe Camus
    Philippe Camus (businessman)
    Philippe Camus is the current non-executive Chairman of the Board of Alcatel-Lucent. He is a French national.-Biography:Philippe Camus was born in 1948. He is a graduate of the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris and the École Normale Supérieure....

     (Chairman)
  • Ben Verwaayen
    Ben Verwaayen
    Bernardus Johannes Maria "Ben" Verwaayen is a Dutch businessman. On September 2, 2008 the Alcatel-Lucent board of directors appointed Verwaayen as the company’s Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Patricia Russo.-Early life:...

      (CEO)
  • Daniel Bernard
  • W. Frank Blount
    W. Frank Blount
    William Frank Blount is an American businessman, and currently the chairman and CEO of venture capital firm JI Ventures, Inc. Blount previously served as chairman and CEO of Cypress Communications Inc., and director and CEO of Telstra Corporation Limited in Australia.-Early life and...

  • Stuart Eizenstat
  • Louis Hughes
  • Sylvia Jay
  • Carla Cico
  • Jean Monty
  • Olivier Piou
  • Jean-Cyril Spinetta
    Jean-Cyril Spinetta
    Jean-Cyril Spinetta is a French businessman currently Chairman of the airline Air France and the holding company Air France-KLM Group and of the nuclear company AREVA.-Early life and formation:...

  • Jean Pierre Desbois
  • Bertrand Lapraye

Research

  • Bell Labs
    Bell Labs
    Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...

     is Alcatel-Lucent's research & development organization.
    • Alcatel-Lucent spent 2.5 billion for R&D in 2008.
    • Alcatel-Lucent spent 2.4 billion for R&D in 2009.
    • Alcatel-Lucent Bell-Labs currently has 27,600 active patents.
    • 2,100 patents granted in 2009 alone.
    • Is involved in 100 worldwide standardization bodies.

Alcatel-Lucent v. Microsoft

Lucent Technologies filed suit against Gateway
Gateway, Inc.
Gateway Computer Corporation, is a computer hardware company headquartered in Irvine, California, USA which develops, manufactures, supports, and markets a wide range of personal computers, computer monitors, servers, and computer accessories...

 and Dell
Dell
Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...

, claiming they had violated patents on MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

, MPEG and other technologies developed by Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...

, a division of predecessor company American Telephone & Telegraph
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...

. Microsoft voluntarily joined the lawsuit in April 2003, and Alcatel was added after it acquired Lucent. The case, involving a number of patents, is pending in U.S. District Court in San Diego, California.

The first part of the case involved two audio coding patents that Alcatel-Lucent claimed were infringed by Microsoft's Windows Media Player application. Alcatel-Lucent won the trial and $1.52 billion in damages, but the judge granted Microsoft's motion for judgment and new trial. Alcatel-Lucent says it will appeal.

In the second part of the case, the judge ruled that Microsoft had not violated Alcatel-Lucent's patents relating to speech recognition and the case was therefore dismissed before going to trial. Alcatel-Lucent intends to appeal.

The third part of the case, involving several user interface-related patents, is scheduled to begin on 21 May 2013.

Additional patent infringement cases, some filed by Microsoft and some filed by Alcatel-Lucent, are pending in the U.S.

Head office

Alcatel-Lucent has its head office in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France since June 2010. Its previous head office, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, built between 1912 and 1929, was renovated in 1998. During the renovation the building was decorated with a theme of the cosmos and time.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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