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Company continues to drive the advancement of the IEEE
802.16e-2005standard through the achievement of key technical milestones such
as beam forming and MIMO in customer deployments
Broadband World Forum, Berlin, October 8, 2007 – At the Broadband
World Forum Europe 2007 trade show and exhibition,taking place in Berlin,
Germany, between October 8 and 11, Alcatel-Lucent highlighted its commercial
leadership and momentum in the global WiMAX market; the company has now secured
15 commercial contracts and more than 70 pilots and field trials in the most
advanced WiMAX standard, IEEE 802.16e-2005 - more than any other vendor.
It has been converting trials into commercial contracts at a rate of two per
month for the last six months, a rapid pace of adoption for Alcatel-Lucent’s
Rev-e solution, which supports fixed, nomadic and mobile broadband
services.
“We are now working on WiMAX deployments with a range of fixed, mobile and
convergence-minded greenfield operators, in both established and high-growth
markets worldwide,” said Karim El Naggar, head of Alcatel-Lucent’s WiMAX
activities. “This demonstrates the breadth and maturity of
Alcatel-Lucent’s WiMAX portfolio position as a leading player in this
arena. Customers are adopting our WiMAX solution because it offers them
exceptional performance as well as some of the most advanced technology on the
market, including beam forming and MIMO.”
Beam forming, a key feature of the 802.16e standard, is designed to steer
and focus radio signals toward end-user terminals instead of spreading it in
all directions, thereby increasing signal strength and quality. The
results, measured on customer networks, show that beam forming has improved
coverage by up to 50 percent and throughput by up to 30 percent.
Moreover, all of these performance increases are independent of the type of
terminal being used.
Alcatel-Lucent also has successfully demonstrated -- on its commercial
equipment -- simultaneous use, in a single sector, of two MIMO downlink
technologies, space-time block coding (STBC) and spatial multiplexing
(SM). MIMO STBC enables the establishment of a more robust WiMAX signal
by leveraging spatial diversity, in turn improving the data rate in adverse
radio conditions up to 30 percent. MIMO SM increases data rates by
sending different signals on each of the two WiMAX base station antennas,
doubling throughput.
“The Alcatel-Lucent WiMAX solution has been designed to smartly address the
two biggest issues of any wireless system deployment -- coverage and
capacity. Initial network rollouts are focusing on coverage, and beam
forming is an efficient means to reduce the number of required sites compared
to traditional network builds. As subscriber traffic grows, the
activation of the MIMO feature also can significantly increase network
capacity. The net result is sizable and operational expense savings for
the operator,” El Naggar added.
Customer premises equipment for these deployments and field tests has been
provided by participants in Alcatel-Lucent’s WiMAX Open CPE Program, a
comprehensive, multi-faceted technology incubation program designed support the
creation, maturation and evolution of a vibrant WiMAX ecosystem. As
Alcatel-Lucent’s commercial momentum grows and its position as a market leader
is solidified, the growth of the Open CPE Program – in terms of the
participation of CPE vendors – has accelerated as well. Open CPE Program
participants include chip suppliers such as Beceem, Intel, Runcom and Sequans
as well as end-user terminal developers such as C-DOT Alcatel Research Center,
Kyocera, Samsung and ZyXEL.
About Alcatel-Lucent WiMAX
Alcatel-Lucent leads the market in WiMAX (802.16e-2005 or Rev-e), with 15
commercial contract and more than 70 trials around the world. Next generation
wireless technology will be based on fundamental techniques of OFDMA, MIMO and
IP – three building blocks already available today Alcatel-Lucent’s commercial
WiMAX systems. Alcatel-Lucent’s position as a global leader in WiMAX
gives the company a unique ability to address the broadest set of customer
requirements. For more
information about Alcatel-Lucent WiMAX solutions, please click here.
About WiMAX
WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It enables
Voice and Broadband connectivity for fixed, nomadic or mobile use in urban,
suburban and rural areas.
* “Beam-forming” is an Advanced Antenna Technology (AAT) that ensures that
radio power is concentrated where the WiMAX terminals are, adjusting the beam
automatically as the terminals move around the coverage area.
** “MIMO” (Multiple Input – Multiple Output) is an Advanced Antenna
Technology (AAT) that combines the radio signals transmitted and received on
separate antennas. The technique takes advantage of the multiple paths and
reflections of a radio signal, in effect using interference to strengthen radio
communications, particularly in densely populated areas where signals can be
degraded by buildings and other physical obstacles.
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