Bell Labs Antwerp Research Centre, the largest ICT research Centre in
Belgium, is renowned throughout the world for its research on video &
immersion, next generation access, Telco cloud and connected devices. Its
multi-disciplinary team of researchers and scientists conducts today and
tomorrow's ICT experiences that matter to people and society and that shape the
communications of the 21st century.
Video & Immersion are part of this 21st century revolution
and Bell Labs experts are convinced that the way we use video is changing. Its
production will be more flexible and user-proprietary and behaviour will change
to integrate immersion in the daily life. To take up this challenge, next
generation access will be developed as well as new video delivery channels and
video processing based applications. This will lead us to handle intelligent
video traffic to lower even further the barrier to video technology.
The Bell Labs Antwerp research centre is also focusing on Telco cloud, a
well-managed integrated computer solution designed to host distribution
application with demanding real-time requirements. Coupled to a software
platform, the Telco cloud can operate as a giant multi-core, distribution
operating system with integrated storage and network support.
Finally, banking on its multi-disciplinary expertise the Bell Labs Antwerp
Research centre is also working on connected devices known as the
Internet-of-Things. This new concept will transform the end-users into
operators and we will be there to deliver the right tools to engage end-users
in creation, sharing and deployment of their own environment.
Today we increasingly see video technology surrounding our
daily lives. Video is no longer solely consumed by means of broadcasted
entertainment. Today we encounter video by browsing the web, communicating with
each other or playing with our smart phones. At the mean time video screens and
cameras are popping up in public environments everywhere. Next to the explosive
growth of video content that is available on-line, there will be a revolution
in how video content is being produced and consumed. While today’s video
consumption consists of watching a monolithic video file, we expect video as a
medium to become more flexible and self-modifying in terms of interaction with
the end-user. We are convinced that we are only at the inflection point of a
new era of video based applications which will cause an explosive growth of the
(video) traffic needs, requiring a set of new video tools which will lower even
further the barrier to apply video technology. Therefore we are researching key
challenges related to video delivery and video processing.
Next Generation
Access
Video traffic is growing each year with 40% and it
will represent 90% of Internet traffic in 2013. Therefor a new generation of
access node will be required that is capable of intelligent handling of video
traffic. This network element will consolidate access, edge & content and
will be able to support 100x more users compared to current (wireline) access
nodes. We will move to one network substrate with a seamless integration of
backhaul and access.
Telco Cloud
A “Telco Cloud” offering is the next opportunity in cloud
computing: a Telco Cloud includes all aspects of computing in a common
infrastructure including (virtual) machine operations, (virtual) network
handling, storage support, and the associated control system that enables a
service provider to holistically manage all compute resources for its
customers. In a nutshell, a Telco Cloud is a well-managed integrated compute
solution specifically designed to host distributed applications with demanding
real-time requirements such as video. When these solutions are extended with a
unified software platform, the Telco Cloud can operate as a giant multi-core,
distributed operating system with integrated storage and network support.
Connected Devices
The omnipresence of ever more feature-rich connected devices
today and the expected abundance of small, cheap and connected computing
devices - the so-called Internet-of-Things - are expected to transform our
environment in an active interface to create, discover and consume
applications. The telecom world will transform from serving 6 billion people to
50+ billion devices. In this vision, the infrastructure on which such ambient
applications are running will include personal devices & sensors,
effectively transforming users into operators of their own infrastructure. As
such, new paradigms are needed in order to unleash the same mass-creativity
that made Web2.0 so successful. How can for instance non-technical users engage
in creating, sharing and deploying applications running in their own
environment?
Some great ideas never have a lift-off because of poor execution. And crappy
ideas can make millions because of brilliant execution. It just proves that
execution is extremely important if we’re measuring the success of an idea in
terms of it going beyond the “idea stage.” Therefore Bell Labs created a
Venture organization, Alcatel-Lucent Ventures.
The mission of this initiative is to incubate game changing ideas and
rapidly bring them to the market. By fostering an open innovation model the
team strives to build business ecosystems, identify external investment
opportunities and engage in joint ventures that allow Alcatel-Lucent to enter
new markets and profitably grow the business.
In an early stage, internal seeds are identified through an entrepreneurial
innovation management program called “Boot Camp”. Multi-disciplinary teams are
coached in lifting off their idea and creating a compelling business
opportunity plan for a new venture. After the Boot Camp, projects can be funded
and become seeds for 6 to 9 months. Afterward the seeds can turn into an
Alcatel-Lucent Venture.
The Seed i2Vision
i2Vision is a new concept for bringing personal,
adapted and interactive video content to TVs, mobile phones and PCs. This
concept is based on a richer information exchange interface between content
producer and broadcasters on one hand, and media delivery networks on the
other. Integrating with various video delivery platforms, the i2Vision platform
allows deploying multi-screen media services in a faster, natural and novel
way. Interactivity is today mainly based on text and graphics. i2Vision
complements this by also allowing the end-user to interact in a natural way
with the media itself.
touchatag
Alcatel-Lucent Mobile Wallet Service provides a turnkey mobile
payment and marketing solution to operators and enterprises in developed and
emerging countries. By 2012, over 1.5 Billion mobile wallets are expected in
the market. For developing markets this focuses on providing first time access
to financial services for person to person money transfer, bill payment and
airtime top-up. In developed markets mobile phones will replace leather wallets
and the plastic cards, paper coupons and coins will be replaced by mobile
applications. Alcatel-Lucent Mobile Wallet Service is created by the
Alcatel-Lucent venture touchatag and is commercialized via the channels of the
Applications group and the Application Enablement solutions & marketing
team.
Join us: Please visit
Alcatel-Lucent’s Careers page to search for current openings in Bell Labs at
the Antwerp, Belgium location, other Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs global
locations or explore positions in other areas of Alcatel-Lucent’s
business.
Meet our People
Our people are our most valuable asset. They are critical to
achieving our mission of combing fundamental research with an economic
rationale. Therefore we employ in Bell Labs Belgium different people with
different strengths and different backgrounds, all working towards a common
goal. Today 150 key scientists and researchers with 18 different
nationalities and degrees such as electrical engineers, physicists, computer
scientists, designers, physicians, sociologists, marketers, economists, … are
collaborating in an open office environment which stimulates creativity.
Paul Davies
All of my life as an engineer I have had a love
of imagining and making new things.
It’s important to me to be working on
products; products that will have an impact on my culture. This is the
opportunity of an engineer, to be a cultural actor, to actively
participate in your society in ways that a politician, a movie star, or an
author never can; to create the products and technologies that shape our daily
lives.
I want everyone on my team to embrace this notion, to accept this
responsibility, to revel in the risks and rewards of this chance. Bell Labs,
and specifically Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, is an incredible environment to
be at the forefront of this type of making, to be really and truly engaged
in our culture and to participate in the humbling history of invention at
Alcatel-Lucent.
Marc Godon
In order to tackle research challenges, the Application
research group chooses to innovate in research methodology and
findings.
Indeed, we believe that multi-disciplinary
approach is the right way to do innovation in the application domain. The
research team consists not only of engineers, but also of scientists,
designers, and business analysts all working intense together in the same
project. Experiences learned that the collaboration crossing these different
expertise domains leads to richer, more creative, and more innovative
results. The research team of the future is not only a multi-disciplinary
team but also a team which has intense collaboration with end-users. This goes
beyond testing and verification. End-users inspire and elaborate together
future products and services and there is no limit on the time scale in this.
Our experiences showed this open lab approach has a valuable grounding effect
on the research results and is an important aspect of the innovation
track.
Nadia De Bode
Hi, my name is Nadia De Bode, I work for
the touchatag venture at Bell Labs.
It was my dream to work in a young venture,
and after 6 months now, I am even more convinced that working in a venture is
superb. I have the privilege to see a new product grow, and I help making it
grow, I see how payment and loyalty finds its way to the mobile phone, and I
help realising that. It is very exciting and a true challenge to bring
something innovative and new into reality, and it is so satisfying to see the
product improve week after week. The launch of the first customer
deployment I helped setting up, made me both nervous and excited. But to see it
work, to see the first users register live for the service was so great.
Everybody in the team helped making that a success. The enthusiasm of the team,
the novelty of what we are busy with, but also the chaos now and then, the
pressure to get something working and even the uncertainty of the venture's
success motivates me. I get to learn so many new things in a short time. I love the
excitement, the closeness of a small team and I believe we can make a
change.
David Lou
Right after I finished my PhD study in University
Ghent, I joined Research and Innovation department in Antwerp, part of Bell
Labs in 2007.
The first project I was working on is
called Smart Touch, where we created innovative NFC applications in a
multi-disciplinary team with hardware/software engineers, sociologists,
computer scientists and industrial designers. It is a special and pleasant
experience to work in such a team. At beginning discussion was difficult.
It took quite some time for experts in various domains to understand each
other’s point of view. Once we broke through this bottleneck, discussion
becomes efficient and fruitful. Many creative ideas and solutions came out of
such cross-domain meetings. In the end, the Smart Touch project was transferred
as a Bell Labs venture, Touchatag. Currently I am doing research on
immersive rich visual applications both for private and enterprise
usage. One of the examples is so called PresenceScape, where we want to
promote and facilitate casual communication among remote participants. It is
totally different project from the previous one. This is part of the reasons I
like to work in Bell Labs. We always receive new challenges.
