Alcatel-Lucent introduces microwave packet solution to the North American market

9500 Microwave Packet Radio part of Alcatel-Lucent’s Mobile Evolution Transport Architecture

CTIA Wireless 2008, Las Vegas, April - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) introduces its 9500 Microwave Packet Radio (MPR), the industry’s first all-IP microwave transport platform designed to provide high-capacity and cost-efficient transport capabilities, to the North American market. By enabling operators to leverage the benefits of packet technology in their existing and greenfield wireless transport networks, the Alcatel-Lucent 9500 MPR addresses a key requirement for operators as they transform their networks to all-IP architectures. This solution is part of Alcatel-Lucent’s Mobile Evolution Transport Architecture (META), the industry’s most comprehensive vision for the evolution of mobile networks from time division multiplexing to all-IP.

The Alcatel-Lucent 9500 MPR is the first microwave solution to offer split-mount and high power all indoor transceivers from the same common nodal indoor unit, enabling operators to engineer all of their microwave needs from trunking to access, or aggregation, from a single powerful network element. This ability provides a unique flexibility that makes the product ideal for a wide range of operator profiles including mobile operators, state and local governments, utilities, public safety and enterprise networks.

“New services and applications like broadcast TV, voice over IP and WiMAX are placing on transport networks increasing capacity and flexibility needs that are leading operators to implement backhaul network evolution strategies,” said Glen Hunt, Principal Analyst, Carrier Infrastructure at Current Analysis. “The Alcatel-Lucent 9500 Microwave Packet Radio provides a breakthrough solution as its service-awareness and service-driven adaptive modulation features provide a unique combination that allows operators to maximize the use of the radio bandwidth at 100 percent in any propagation condition.”

“As mobile and fixed operators are continuing to transform their networks to cope with the accelerated rollout of new, IP-based business and entertainment services, the transport network also is requiring higher degrees of flexibility and backhaul consolidation” said Philippe Dumont, Alcatel-Lucent’s vice president for Wireless transmission activities or Romano Valussi, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s optics activities. “With the introduction of the Alcatel-Lucent 9500 MPR to the North American market, we further strengthen our commitment to help operators achieve their network transformation plans cost-effectively and efficiently, while confirming our technology leadership in the transport arena.”

Efficiently transforming microwave TDM (time division multiplexing) traffic - from existing, widely deployed TDM systems - into packets, the Alcatel-Lucent 9500 MPR introduces innovative features into the microwave transport arena, including the ability to transport packets in response to varying microwave link conditions, such as adverse weather, for optimized efficiency. This advanced platform recognizes the traffic – be it video, voice or data – through its service-driven adaptive modulation feature that directly maps any traffic type over the packet radio frame. This capability allows the 9500 MPR to automatically adapt transmission to meet the quality requirements of the different service types to be transported.



Additionally, the Alcatel-Lucent 9500 MPR offers a variety of features not found in traditional microwave TDM platforms, including DS1 and DS3 in packet via pseudo-wire and circuit emulation services (CES), multi-service aggregation, service-awareness and Ethernet synchronization distribution. These features improve packet aggregation, increase bandwidth optimization and improve Ethernet connectivity.

More than 150 mobile operators have recognized Alcatel-Lucent’s leadership in mobile transport evolution, including recently-announced France’s SFR, Japan’s Softbank Mobile, Turkey’s Avea, Brasil Telecom, Vodafone Spain, Cellular South in the US, Korea’s SK Telecom, Vietnam’s VNPT, Morocco’s’ WANA and Yemen’s MTN.