BARCELONA, Spain—IP
and broadband communication company Alcatel-Lucent announced a slew of news on
the first day of the 2009 Mobile World Congress here, including a certification
by the WiMax Forum and a software module the company says enables service
providers to expand the capabilities of their wireless networks through the
rapid introduction of Long Term Evolution technology. In addition, the company
launched the ng Connect Program, designed to develop the 4G ecosystem.
Alcatel-Lucent said the software module is a key component of the company's
enhanced NodeB (eNodeB) solution and represents a “major step” forward in the
company's strategy to support next-generation wireless services worldwide.
Already in trials with tier-one service providers around the world, the company
said it will be generally available in mid-2009.
"The introduction of this LTE software offering highlights our focus on
bringing the latest innovations to market to help mobile operators give their
customers a superior mobile broadband experience," said the company’s head
of next-generation mobile access activities, Paul Larbey. "We are strongly
committed to ensuring that our service provider customers can quickly evolve
and optimize their radio access networks with the latest technology, while
preserving their initial investment.”
(Broad)banding Together
The company’s ng Connect Program, in its initial phase, will concentrate on
five areas: consumer media and entertainment, enterprise collaboration and electronic
health care, automotive connectivity, digital signage, and computing
experience. The program is dedicated to establishing a rich and diverse
ecosystem of infrastructure, devices, content and applications for both mobile
and fixed broadband networks, including 4G, LTE, GPON and other ultra-high-bandwidth
technologies.
The program boasts a membership that includes 4DK, Buzznet, Chumby,
Connect2Media, Dimedis, FishLabs, Hewlett-Packard, QNX, Samsung, Signexx and
Total Immersion.
"The establishment of the ng Connect program is an important step in
our strategy to create an open ecosystem so that the trusted capabilities of
service providers can be combined with the innovation of the Web to bring whole
new classes of services to market, services that can leverage the growing
capabilities of service-aware IP networks, IMS and more,” said Alcatel-Lucent’s
chief marketing officer and founder of ng Connect, Tim Krause. “The ng Connect
Program is dedicated to bringing this ecosystem to life."
Certifiable
Alcatel-Lucent also announced it received WiMax 3.5GHz certification by the WiMax
Forum, an industry-led, not-for-profit organization that certifies and promotes
the compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products. The
organization bestowed the WiMax Forum Certified seal of approval for the 3.5GHz
band version of its WiMax Rev-e (802.16-2005 standard) compact base station.
“We’re pleased to certify Alcatel-Lucent’s equipment in the 3.5GHz band,
particularly given the breadth of the company’s presence in WiMax deployments
worldwide in this frequency,” said WiMax Forum President and Chairman Ron
Resnick. “The company’s solution met all specifications in a series of tests at
the labs of AT4 wireless, surpassing the WiMax Forum’s stringent certification
requirements.”
Alcatel-Lucent said out of 34 Alcatel-Lucent Rev-e commercial deployments
worldwide, 21 are in the 3.5GHz band, and seven of these are already in
commercial service. The company said this latest certification marks a
“significant step” toward the certification of the company’s entire portfolio
of WiMax solutions. “Alcatel-Lucent is proud to receive WiMax Forum
Certification, which acknowledges the development efforts we’ve made over the
last four and a half years,” said Larbey.
In December, Alcatel-Lucent announced that it was refocusing its WiMax research
and development efforts on the technology’s dominant market opportunity,
enhanced wireless DSL—which includes
data-centric mobility usage on netbooks and MIDs (mobile Internet devices) as
well as residential and nomadic PC use. The company predicts close to 90
percent of WiMax Rev-e subscribers in 2013 will fall in this service category.
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