Alcatel-Lucent boost for mobile operators

Alcatel-Lucent is helping network operators prepare for 4G

Network giant Alcatel-Lucent today announced a series of new products and upgrades as part of its Ultimate Wireless Packet Core (UWPC) designed to help mobile operators cope with growing bandwidth issues on 3G networks and ready themselves for next-gen networks.

Basil Alwan, head of Alcatel-Lucent’s carrier group strategy, explained that as mobile networks come under increasing pressure it is important to help improve the end-to-end hosting of the networks.

He explained that the firm has now upgraded its flagship 7750 Service Router to be able to support both 3G and 4G gateways in order to meet the demands of mobile data and help provide a seamless and scalable solution for LTE, GPRS and HPSA+ traffic.

"Many smartphones are accessing several megabytes of data on a regular basis, some ten times that of regular mobile devices. Now, we are also seeing around four per cent of users are using two to three gigabytes of bandwidth," he said.

"In time, 4G networks will handle this traffic but there will be a period of transition from the 2G and 3G before 4G becomes completely dominant so operators need to be able to handle this demand."

Alwan added that the 7750 SR would deliver more than ten times the performance and scalability of typical 3G packet core gateways and would be available for commercial delivery of 2G, 3G and LTE services in the second half of the year.