Alcatel-Lucent to collaborate with Softbank Mobile on demonstrations of high-speed wireless in-building solutions in Japan

Alcatel-Lucent (Paris: Euronext and NYSE: ALU) today announced that it is collaborating with Japanese service provider, Softbank Mobile on a series of demonstrations of its 3G wireless in-building solutions in Japan. The technology demonstrations are designed to highlight the benefits of home base stations and feature Alcatel-Lucent’s Femto Base Station Router (BSR), an innovative solution that packs W-CDMA/HSPA radio access and core network elements into one compact, easy-to-deploy unit.

These demonstrations are a key element in efforts to deliver high-speed mobile voice and data services to Softbank’s customers in their homes and business locations.

The range of demonstrations Alcatel-Lucent is conducting with Softbank include the completion of circuit-switched voice calls and the delivery of high-speed data services using Softbank handsets, and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) technology using laptops equipped with HSDPA PC cards.

“These successful demonstrations represent a big step forward for Alcatel-Lucent in establishing itself as a leader in the delivery of in-building wireless solutions,” said Frederic Rose, Alcatel-Lucent APAC President. “Alcatel-Lucent’s Femto BSR offers an ideal way for service providers – such as Softbank Mobile – to provide broadband wireless services in a home or small office more efficiently than a traditional cellular network could.”

Based on Alcatel-Lucent’s revolutionary “flat IP (Internet Protocol)” architecture, the Femto BSR integrates the W-CDMA Node B and packet core network elements, including the radio network controller, into a single, compact box. This technique reduces the number of network elements (and related “layers”) that network traffic has to travel through, eliminating bottlenecks in the network and thereby increasing data throughput and lowering latency. Additionally, this approach enables operators to deploy and optimize smaller, stand-alone base stations that register themselves on the network, making them easier for the service provider to manage, even in large numbers.

In addition to the savings in cost and space, the Femto BSR offers exceptional flexibility, enabling operators to support a variety of deployment scenarios; the Femto BSR can be offered with integrated radio network controller (RNC) functionality, router functionality or both, depending on the needs of the operator and the network architecture they have in place.

As a global leader in the development and deployment of third-generation (3G) networks, Alcatel-Lucent has deployed commercial 3G (W-CDMA/HSPA and CDMA/EV-DO) systems for more than 70 operators worldwide.