Next Generation Communications Blog

LTE

The Evolution of Smart Grid Bandwidth Requirements


By Erin Harrison

Wireless technologies are playing and will continue to play a significant role in facilitating the evolution of the smart grid. With high-speed wireless broadband technologies such as LTE, power utilities and industry forums are engaged in the process of acquiring spectrum for their use and/or sharing the spectrum owned by other organizations and carriers.

Given these trends, it is necessary that utilities have the required data bandwidth to determine the channel bandwidth in the possible wireless licensed spectrum such as 700 MHz and 1800 MHz (1.8 GHz).

In a recent whitepaper, “Smart Grid Bandwidth Requirements,” Alcatel-Lucent examined the bandwidth needed for an Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based Field Area Network covering a utility’s service territory.

The 4G LTE Innovation Center at Verizon -- Envisioning and Helping Create the Wireless Future

By Erin Harrison

With 4G Long Term Evolution still in its infancy, collaboration between customers, suppliers, partners and entrepreneurs is vital to progress. A new Verizon facility that brings all those groups together to collaborate on new devices and services in a live 4G LTE network environment has provided just that dynamic.

When Verizon first envisioned its LTE Innovation Center, they imagined a place where customers, suppliers, partners and entrepreneurs could collaborate and work directly with 4G LTE technology in a live 4G LTE network environment.

“Today, we have just that place. And we’re seeing what’s possible when some of the most creative minds imaginable team up to innovate with 4G LTE technology,” wrote Brian Higgins in a recent article in the Alcatel-Lucent E-Zine Enriching Communications, "Verizon LTE Innovation Center Ignites 4G."

The LTE Innovation Center is unique because it combines a lab environment and an Experience Center where Verizon customers and other technology companies can see demonstrations of the latest 4G LTE innovations.

Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Division Wins 4G Contract with Verizon & ServiceView Wins Prestigious Award


By Beecher Tuttle

Alcatel-Lucent dominated the telecom headlines last week with two fairly big announcements in the 4G space. The first occurred on Tuesday, when Verizon Wireless confirmed that it will rely on Mobile Device Management (MDM) software from Motive, a division of Alcatel-Lucent, to manage the growth of its 4G LTE Network.  The second piece of Alcatel-Lucent news came at 4G World in Chicago just days later, when Motive's ServiceView for Mobile solution won the “Best of 4G” award in the “Best User Experience for Mobile” category.

Customer Experience? Think Bigger, Act Smarter!


By Simon Loe, Alcatel-Lucent

Telecom service providers in developed markets are turning to customer experience as a business strategy to address growing market saturation, reduce customer churn and increase profitability. There is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates better services generate price premiums.

The strategy is being implemented in a number of different ways, such as:

  • mobile service providers providing subscribers with a small cell to improve signal strength and broadband speeds;
  • operators improving new service switch-on by making process simpler through smarter software in customer equipment;
  • call centres using smarter technology, such as IVR and network monitoring, to resolve customer problems faster.

However a bigger return can be achieved by taking a broader perspective on customer interaction, as well as implementing specific product or service improvements.  

Network Operators Need to Prepare for Booming M2M Traffic

By Erin Harrison

The so-called “Internet of Things” is expected to connect 15 billion devices by 2015, demanding a new approach to communications business models, operations and technologies.  As a result, driven in no small measure by the dramatic projected increase in machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, wireless network operators are in a position where they need to prepare for an explosion of signaling traffic, according to a recent Alcatel-Lucent TechZine item, "Getting Ready for M2M Traffic Growth."

Wireless Service Providers Rely on lightRadio to Optimize MIMO Gains on LTE Networks



By Susan J. Campbell

As a service provider, what potential opportunities emerge if you were able to improve capacity, coverage and performance? With lightRadio technologies, you can gain support for current and anticipated wireless technologies that will address quality and growth changes; combine advancements in radios, antennas and baseband processing to support cloud principles, virtualization and architectural flexibility; and enable easy reprogramming and reconfiguration of network elements.

In this Alcatel-Lucent
lightRadio Technology Overview, the innovations to address service provider challenges is explored. These challenges easily include adding more radios, antennas, towers and processing capacity; increasing spectral bandwidth; supporting new technologies; and making better use of cell site capacity. The development of lightRadio by Alcatel-Lucent focuses on optimizing total network costs over time so each wireless provider can make the most of their existing assets and capabilities.

Delivering a Better Mobile Broadband Customer Experience Influences the Bottom Line

By Erin Harrison

In today’s highly competitive mobile broadband market, it’s all about the customer. We all know that poor customer service not only gives a company a bad rap, but it ultimately eats away from their bottom line.

To keep customers on board and generate long-term success, service providers need to put more focus on the overall customer experience, according to the experts at Alcatel-Lucent. For many service providers, they say, the new path to profitability is a “holistic” approach focused on anticipating customers’ needs and improving their quality of experience (QoE).

A Cost-Effective, Bluetooth-Focused Approach to Traffic Monitoring

By Beecher Tuttle

The exponential growth of the world's population – coupled with the ever-increasing reliance on automobiles and the deterioration of roads and highways – has turned traffic congestion into a major concern.

In fact, the Urban Mobility Report estimated in 2009 that the ramifications of traffic congestion cost Americans around $80 billion a year, not to mention the negative consequences for the environment. This number is expected to reach $150 billion by 2033, and the problem is even worse in more crowded countries like India and China.

Unfortunately, the sluggish economy has only worsened the issue, as many communities no longer have the resources to fix their infrastructure or modernize their public transit systems.

So what are communities to do?

Optimizing LTE Network Performance with SON and Extended SON

By Beecher Tuttle

The widespread use of smartphones, tablet computers and other Web-enabled mobile devices has caused wireless data services to explode. While this is good news for application developers and mobile device manufacturers, it presents several challenges for service providers whose networks see more bandwidth-hungry traffic each day.

This concern is compounded by the fact that the increase in traffic is surpassing the growth rate for wireless revenue. To survive, service providers need to decrease their cost per bit while simultaneously optimizing their LTE network to handle more traffic....

Bell Labs Helps Mobile Service Providers to Understand and Meet Video Calling Quality of Experience (QoE) Challenges

By Michelle Amodio

The explosive growth of smart mobile devices capable of making video calls is placing intense pressures on service providers to configure their networks to assure users have experiences that meet or exceed their expectations. However, providing a superior quality of experience (QoE) is a complex challenge.

As part of its support of mobile service providers around the world, Alcatel Lucent’s Bell Labs recently looked at the factors that influence QoE) to help service providers full understand all of the issues and what needs to be done to resolve them.

The questions the Bell Labs researchers explored were:

  • What are the key factors that influence QoE for mobile video calls?
  • Are residential broadband networks ready for them?

There was good news on both fronts. The challenges could be identified and categorized in terms of importance, and viable solutions can help operators meet consumer expectations in a timely and cost effective manner, as well as lay the foundation for new profitable services.

The main finding of the researchers was that service providers require not bigger (more bandwidth) networks but faster ones (in terms of response time). They validated that speed, combined with the proper provision of a consistent quality of service (QoS), are the critical determinants in mobile video calling QoE.

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