Alcatel Lucent unveils 'industry changing' mobile technology

Alcatel-Lucent has unveiled what it claims is a "fundamental breakthrough" in mobile network technology that could dramatically reduce the cost of base station deployments while helping operators meet the coming mobile data explosion.

The LightRadio technology sits inside a small box called the LightRadio Cube which weighs 300g and can broadcast any radio frequency in the 2G, 3G and 4G bands between 400MHz and 4,000MHz over several hundred meters.

The device connects to a system-on-a-chip component developed by Freescale that contains the processor technology traditionally housed in the base station, so it can be deployed where best suited, either at the antenna location or in the cloud.

Wim Sweldens, Alcatel-Lucent's vice president of ventures and networks, claimed that the LightRadio Cube's size allows it to be deployed in any home, business or public environment to provide coverage to meet increased mobile data demands.

"Mobile data traffic will increase 30-fold by 2015 as machine-to-machine communication and connected devices reach one trillion. Operators have to migrate their networks ahead of this data explosion," he said.

"LightRadio is a fundamental breakthrough that will change the course of the industry by allowing operators to reduce network deployment costs by 50 per cent but increase the numbers of cell sites on their network to improve coverage and capacity."

Sweldens said that this will lower the cost of deployment, and help developing markets and nations like the UK to gain better access to mobile internet networks.

"The small form factor of the LightRadio Cube means you can connect to existing fibre infrastructures and deploy on items such as lampposts or in homes and businesses to increase coverage at a far reduced cost," he said.

"This means that the five billion or so people as yet unable to get broadband connections around the world can be covered by mobile broadband in areas that would have been otherwise too costly for operators to expand into."

Wim Sweldens shows off the LightRadio Cube

Alcatel-Lucent intends to roll out additional products to help with deployments of the technology in six-month intervals so that operators upgrading their networks can add the different technologies at the same time.

The company also announced that it has several major network operators planning to trial the LightRadio technology in September, including Orange in Europe, Verizon in the US and China Mobile.