BellSouth selects Alcatel for WiMAX trial
BellSouth (NYSE: BLS) and Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) announced today an agreement to trial Alcatel’s EvoliumВ® WiMAX solution in the BellSouth lab. This agreement comes four months after Alcatel conducted the industry’s first live demonstration of the newly ratified WiMAX IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard.
BellSouth, the first major telecom provider to commercially launch wireless broadband using pre-WiMAX technology in the U.S., will begin lab trials next quarter based on Alcatel’s standards-based universal WiMAX solution (IEEE 802.16e-2005). The trials will be conducted in the 2.3 GHz WCS spectrum.
“BellSouth continues to pave the way in wireless broadband,” said Paulino Barros, chief product officer – BellSouth Retail Markets. “We are committed to increasing our broadband coverage. We look forward to working with Alcatel to assess the viability of offering a simple and seamless WiMAX solution that will extend broadband even further into our network.”
In addition to its active role in the WiMAX Forumв„ў, Alcatel has been broadening the WiMAX ecosystem over the past year by cooperating with leading trendsetters to define reference usage profiles and conduct interoperability testing. With the WiMAX IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard now ratified, carriers are eager to move to the next stage of market validation so as to take advantage of its unique cost, coverage and performance benefits. Alcatel’s cost-efficient, high-performance EvoliumВ® WiMAX infrastructure is a truly universal broadband wireless access solution, natively supporting fixed, nomadic and mobile usage.
“Alcatel believes that broadband wireless access technology offers important strategic value to carriers looking to deliver the high-speed, high-quality services that their customers expect wherever they are,” said Hubert de Pesquidoux, Executive Vice President and President of Alcatel’s North American activities. “This trial with BellSouth is a significant indication that our customers agree – universal WiMAX is ready for the market, and the market is ready for universal WiMAX.”
WiMAX is a new broadband wireless access technology that enables connectivity through wireless networks for fixed, nomadic or mobile use in urban, suburban and rural areas. The technology offers a cost-effective broadband access alternative where DSL is unavailable for technical or economical reasons, or a last-mile alternative to unbundling for operators who are offering a combination of voice and broadband access offers to the next generation of wireless devices. The 802.16e-2005 WiMAX standard is in fact a more advanced successor to 802.16d-2004 (called “Static WiMAX,” or Revision d), and offers superior performance and flexibility in pure fixed deployment scenarios.
The Alcatel EvoliumВ® WiMAX solution will be shown in the Alcatel booth at the WCA conference June 27 through 30 in Washington DC.
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Tags: Alcatel, BellSouth, Operators, Regional, Telecom services, US, WiMAX