By Peter Bernstein, Senior Editor
This posting marks the fourth and final installment of my series about Bell Labs innovations. The first three highlighted: the context for Bell Labs as a prolific and globally recognized leader in the global research community; its role as critical driver of Alcatel-Lucent’s market leadership; the Labs’ rich history of invention across a broad range of disciplines; and, how it literally is “Innovating Innovation” with a culture based on continuous learning and adaptability. I will reveal my prejudice. I saved the best for last. This post will give a glimpse at what is cooking at Bell Labs today in terms of things that have just been or soon will be productized.
Making a difference
I reiterate what has been a common theme in looking at the Labs. The work being done is such a “target rich” environment for investigation that it is extremely difficult to pick what warrants discussion. That said, it is time to take a peak. There are, however, a few caveats to remember:
- The list is arbitrary in terms of significance (they all are important) or order of magnitude. What they share is they call can be characterized as “game changers.”
- Concentration, to reiterate, is on Bell Labs’ research that is in the process of or is being commercialized and creating value for Alcatel-Lucent and its customers right now.
Here are my selections.
LightRadio™: A new type of small base station whose components are distributed into antennas and the cloud-like network.
LightRadio is based on a new architecture where base stations are broken into component elements and distributed through the “carrier cloud.” Various cell tower antennas are combined and shrunk into a single Bell Labs-pioneered multi-frequency, multi-standard (2G, 3G, LTE) device for mounting on poles, sides of buildings or anywhere else there is power and a broadband connection.
Benefits include:
- Reduction of energy consumption
- Extension of broadband reach
- Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for operators
- Enablement of new services and price points
This is a game changer because it bends the price/performance curve enabling operators to extend broadband reach, offer new services and do so more efficiently and effectively.
Mobile Wallet Service (MWS): A complete solution to place the mobile operator in the center of the emerging mobile payment equation.
The news is full of initiatives aimed at turning mobile devices into electronic wallets. Why? Because the problem is that it is complicated — technology issues, business relationship issues throughout ecosystems, transactional processing and data storage and retrieval challenges, etc.
That said, Alcatel-Lucent, powered by a series of Bell Labs innovations in March of 2010 announced MWS as a complete service-as-software (SaaS) solution. It is not only ground breaking in terms of its approach, but it also enables mobile operators to be the focal point of what is estimated to be a $350 billion market within the next five years.
MWS builds on Alcatel-Lucent’s previously announced partnership with Clear2Pay to collaborate on a mobile payment framework. MWS includes handset applications, a stored value account, gateways to banks and payment networks, links to an operator’s billing system and a portfolio of access devices for proximity payment. It is part of Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs created an Application Enablement strategy which aims to help operator-centric ecosystems create new value by exposing their network capabilities in a managed and controlled way.
With owner/operators of physical networks around the world urgently seeking ways to better monetize their assets and leverage their customer relationships in constantly changing ecosystems, MWS can be a pivotal part of their portfolios going forward.
300 Megabits per second over two traditional DSL lines over distances up to 400 meters: Productized under the name “DSL Phantom Mode,” the breakthrough received the Broadband Infovision Award as 2010 “Broadband innovation of the year.”
Bell Labs achieved downstream transmission speeds of 300 Megabits per second (Mbps) over distances up to 400 meters (or 100Mbps at 1km). The science behind it involves creation of a virtual or “phantom” channel that supplements the two physical wires that are the standard configuration for copper transmission lines. The implications are substantial. By pushing the limits of transmission over cooper to speeds that will enable great broadband customer experiences, this capability gives carriers the ability to greatly extend the life of their outside plant without having user abandon their networks for better performance.
100 Petabits per second optical transmission record: Bell Labs in late 2009 set a new optical transmission record of more than 100 Petabits per second.kilometer. This is the equivalent to 100 million Gigabits per second.kilometer. This transmission involved sending the equivalent of 400 DVDs per second over 7,000 kilometers, roughly the distance between Paris and Chicago. It represents the highest capacity ever achieved over a transoceanic distance and an increase that exceeds today’s capabilities by a factor of ten.
Researchers from the Bell Labs facility in Villarceaux, France, used 155 lasers, each operating at a different frequency and carrying 100 Gigabits of data per second, to dramatically enhance the performance of standard Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology.
Alcatel-Lucent likes to note that high-speed optical transmission is a key component of Alcatel-Lucent’s High Leverage Network™ architecture, key elements of which have already been selected by leading service providers. It almost should go without saying that given the exponential explosion in traffic growth, driven by a combination of more people and devices attaching to networks and the insatiable appetite for rich-media applications like social media and video of all types (streamed, IPTV, etc.), the impact such an increase in carriage capacity can have on operator abilities to meet global capacity requirements.
The world of 100 Gigabit per second transmission: Like the above and for many of the same reasons in term of its importance, Bell Labs technology is behind the rapid adoption of 100 Gigabit solutions. Alcatel-Lucent’s optical transport with 100G coherent transmission incorporates coherent detection, advanced digital signal processing and optimized multi-level modulation formats. It uses unique, ultra-fast digital signal processing algorithms to compensate for dispersion in a matter of milliseconds, allowing for more flexibility in networking implementations and rapid restoration.
The Alcatel-Lucent IP with 100GE solution provides the industry’s first 100 Gigabit Ethernet service routing interfaces deployable in the metro area, service edge and core of the network. Based on silicon innovation that yielded the industry’s first 100G network processor chipset, 100GE modules can be deployed in Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR and 7450 ESS platforms to unleash the power of 100GE for efficient IP transport across the broad range of residential, business and mobile services.
Looking forward, excitement is already building around the recently released FP3™ 400G network processor, demonstrating how the Labs continues to push theoretical limits enabling fast realization of breakthrough products and services.
GreenTouch™: A consortium of leading service providers, academic and industrial research institutions and non-governmental organizations, the group is dedicated to defining the challenges, identifying the trends and issues and developing solutions that will achieve the goal of delivering within five years the architecture, specifications, roadmap and demonstrations of key components needed to increase the energy efficiency of information and telecommunications technology (ICT) networks – in particular, the service provider networks that make up the Internet – by a factor of 1,000 from current levels.
Two points need to be made:
- Alcatel-Lucent has been at the forefront of global eco-sustainability efforts for several years.
- Starting with the first Green Touch project, Large-Scale Antenna System demo, Bell Labs —through the participation of its researchers and by virtue of Labs VP Gee Rittenhouse serving as the GreenTouch Consortium chairman — is a driving force behind meeting what many view as an extremely ambitious goal over the next five years.
Representative other projects underway by Green Touch that are likely to soon be in the news include:
- Utilizing energy-efficient electronic integration of packet router functions combined with silicon photonic technologies to minimize losses in electronic interconnections and in the optical and electronic interfaces used in high-speed optical transport networks.
- Generating energy efficiencies in delivery of high-bandwidth services through a dynamic wavelength capability that can more closely align the energy requirements of a given service with the energy needed to support it.
- Reducing energy consumption in wireless access networks without compromising coverage by using separate data and signaling networks to facilitate “on-demand” rather than “always on” device functionality.
The impacts will be profound.
In conclusion
We live in an era where there are no more “ivory towers,” no monopoly on creativity and where ingenuity literally knows no boundaries, we should all take comfort in the fact that Bell Labs is not only alive and well but thriving. Consider that:
- The rate of patent production has never been higher
- Contributions to product realization are in evidence across the entire Alcatel-Lucent portfolio of new systems and services offerings
- Global recognition of the uniqueness and value of pooled talents and productivity of Bell Labs remains the envy of the industry
- The Labs continues to demonstrate the value of organic innovation during times when other organizations are busy shopping for intellectual property rather than investing in its creation
- Bell Labs researchers are at the forefront of efforts that will truly change/improve the way we live and work and provide good stewardship of our planet
- A culture of “innovating innovation” assures that Bell Labs will remain arguably the world’s premier research organization
From my perspective of watching Bell Labs and the technology industry over many years, being allowed the opportunity to kick the tires has been a treat and a revelation. We need the world’s best and brightest thinking big thoughts. We need concentrated brain power maximizing the exponential contributions that can only come from a culture of inquisitiveness and collaboration that is properly funded, incented and focused.
Alcatel-Lucent has a right to be proud not just of the past of Bell Labs, but of its present and future. And while obviously investment in the Labs is rightly viewed as critical to Alcatel-Lucent, putting those business considerations aside, we all owe Alcatel-Lucent a tip of the hat for seeing that the Labs has the resources it needs to be who it is, a true global treasure.
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