LONDON:A new light weight technology developed for telecommunications sector, which would increase energy efficiency and vastly decrease operational expenditure, was unveiled here on Monday. Pioneered by Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent’s research and development arm, the new Light Radio Cube system will significantly reduce technical complexity and contain power consumption and other operating costs in the face of sharp traffic growth.The new technology, unfolded at a news conference, is accomplished by taking the current base stations and massive cell site towers described as typically the most expensive, power hungry and difficult to maintain elements in the network, and radically shrinking and simplifying them.The power base, the heart of any cellular network and measuring almost six feet in height, has thanks to the new technology now being reduced to the size of man’s palm. Alcatel Lucent is the leading network technology group in fixed, mobile and converged broad-band networking.Speaking at the news conference, Philippe Keryer, President, Alcatel-Lucent’s Networks Group, said the new invention wOULD signal the end of the base stations and the cell towers.Additionally, he said the major benefits from Light Radio Cube would help shrink the carbon footprint of mobile networks by over 50 per cent, reduce the total cost of ownership of mobile operators by up to 50 per cent and improve the end user services by significantly increasing the bandwidth per user thanks to the deployment of small antennas everywhere.Furthermore, Keryer added that the new technology has the capability to use solar and wind energy as power base and thus be able to be deployed in a remote areas as well.According to Ben Verwaayen, Chief Executive Officer, Alcatel-Lucent, governments and regulatory bodies are expected to welcome the technical development which will help to meet targets for universal broadband access by laying the foundation to address the so-called ‘digital divide’.The new technology will be introduce from September this year and will be available for commercial use by next year. It will also signal the end of mobile industry’s reliance on masts and base stations around the world.
The company’s wireless division chief Wim Sweldons told the news conference: “Light radio will help mobile operators evolve their networks to address the mobile broadband deluge”.World’s largest mobile operator-China Mobile- and another leading computer manufacturer-Hewlett Packard- have joined forces to introduce the new technology in their systems.Light radio represents a new approach where the base station, typically located at the base of each cell site tower, is broken into its components elements and then distributed into both the antenna and throughout a cloud-like network.It also shrinks clutter of antennas serving 2G,3G and 4G systems into a single powerful, antenna that can be mounted on poles, sides of buildings or anywhere else there is power and broadband connection.According to Keryer, the total addressable market for the radio technology necessary to serve such networks and devices is expected to exceed 100 billion Euros over the next seven years – APP
