Feb 14, 2012 6:01 AM
Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) is in talks to use new Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) telecommunications gear designed to help wireless networks handle more calls. The discussions reflect the industry’s race to avert a capacity crunch for mobile service.
Alcatel-Lucent (ALU)’s lightRadio, introduced a year ago, is a Rubik’s Cube-sized device that contains radios and antennae and can be mounted on rooftops, phone poles and bus shelters to expand a network’s capacity in a given spot. LightRadio is one of several new technologies created to help the mobile-phone industry cope with the rising tide of calling and data that’s putting a strain on mobile networks just as the wireless airwaves -- or spectrum -- used to carry traffic grow scarce.
As consumers do more Web surfing and application downloading on devices such as Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and tablets using Google Inc. (GOOG) Android software, mobile-data traffic will surge 26-fold in the five years through 2015, Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) estimates. And with limited spectrum available, mobile-service providers are looking for ways to squeeze more from existing capacity. That has Alcatel-Lucent and other gear makers racing for part of the $36 billion that Ovum predicts U.S. phone companies will devote to capital spending in 2012.
“We use technologies to mine spectrum as much as possible,” Bob Azzi, senior vice president of network at Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint, said in an interview. “That can give us some wiggle room along the way.”
‘Spectrum Crunch’ Multiple U.S. carriers are testing lightRadio and may begin deploying it this year, Marcus Weldon, chief technology officer at Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent, said in an interview. He declined to identify the carriers. Representatives of Dallas-based AT&T Inc. (T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), based in New York, declined to comment. For the past two decades, the U.S. government has helped carriers meet increased demand by auctioning off large blocks of airwaves, used to carry calls and data. Freeing new spectrum has emerged as a “crucial challenge,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a speech last year. Even after new auctions happen, it would take several more years for the buyers to deploy the spectrum.
As a result, U.S. carriers may grow more dependent on new technologies to keep up with escalating user demand.
‘Waiting’ for the FCC “The No. 1 issue for us as we move forward, and for the industry, I believe, continues to be spectrum,” AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said during a January earnings call. “This growth cannot continue without more spectrum being cleared and brought to market. And despite all the speeches from the FCC, we’re all still waiting.”
Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM), the biggest maker of mobile-phone chips, has developed its own software and chips for small cells -- these the size of a cigarette pack -- designed to boost network capacity.
New capacity-boosting cells augur an overhaul of the design of wireless networks, which now rely on placement of large, expensive cell towers that transmit signals between handsets and the vast underground fiber-optic cable networks that send calls instantly across the globe.
“It’s going to change the way that networks get deployed, and we’re going to get the data rates through the devices up pretty dramatically by using that,” Paul Jacobs, CEO of San Diego-based Qualcomm, said during a November conference call with investors.
weiter http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-14/...-capacity-fight-tech.html
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