"We're focusing on the hottest growth areas," Pat Russo, executive vice president for strategic and corporate operations, told institutional investors at the NationsBanc Montgomery Securities investment conference in San Francisco.

The projections for the rapid growth had just been compiled by Lucent, she said, adding that Lucent draws up figures for overall market growth on an annual basis.

Lucent, along with telecommunications equipment providers and traditional data networking companies such as Cisco Systems Inc, compete fiercely to sell their wares to telephone companies like AT&T Corp.

Spun off from AT&T almost two years ago, investors and analysts expect Lucent to make a multibillion acquisition in the next six months in the data communications industry to better compete in the lucrativemarket for equipment that helps carry both voice, data and video signals over the same digital network.

When the two years is up, Lucent is free to use an accounting method called "pooling of interests," which allows the acquiring company to pool its interests and assets with those of the acquired company. That way of accounting for a merger does not have as damaging an effect on a company's earnings as a traditional straight purchase.

Russo also said that during the next 10 years, China, India and Indonesia would add 300 million telephone lines.

"There is a network revolution going on," Russo said.