At MWC 2015, Alcatel-Lucent has unveiled Wireless Unified Networks strategy that leverages the capabilities of Wi-Fi and cellular technologies to deliver higher capacity and offer a consistent high-quality subscriber experience.
As part of its Wireless Unified Networks strategy, Alcatel-Lucent is introducing two separate capabilities that blend Wi-Fi and cellular access. The Wi-Fi boost uses cellular to enhance the performance of Wi-Fi networks and the Cellular boost uses unlicensed spectrum to enhance the performance of cellular
The new approach will allow operators to combine standalone cellular and Wi-Fi networks into one unified wireless network for home, office, and outdoor environments, maximizing performance for subscribers across both access technologies, Alcatel-Lucent said.
Catch the live action at Mobile World Congress (MWC 2015)
According to Alcatel-Lucent, both Wi-Fi and cellular face certain challenges that can impact subscriber experience. By combining the unique strengths of Wi-Fi with those of LTE, it is now possible to offer the subscriber a truly compelling experience, the company said.
Mike Schabel, vice president of Small Cells in Alcatel-Lucent said, “As an industry we have historically treated cellular and Wi-Fi as unique technologies. For example, the industry debates the merits of Voice/Data over Wi-Fi versus Voice/Data over LTE. From a consumer perspective, it should simply be just Wireless.”
“With Wireless Unified Networks, we are excited to be taking the important steps to transform and greatly enhance the user’s wireless experience in the home, at work, and in dense venue networks by combining existing Wi-Fi and cellular networks into one high performance network,” Schabel added.
Alcatel-Lucent’s Wi-Fi boost technology combines the downlink of Wi-Fi with the uplink of cellular. The company will trial the Wi-Fi boost capabilities in the second quarter of 2015 with commercial availability in the second half of 2015.
Alcatel-Lucent is introducing additional performance enhancements by adding a cellular downlink to the Wi-Fi downlink of the Wi-Fi boost. This is consistent with a developing standard known as LTE Wi-Fi Aggregation (LWA), and can more than double download speeds relative to standalone network capabilities, the company said.
The LWA initiative has already got acceptance from the market.
Dan Rabinovitsj, chief operating officer, Ruckus Wireless, says, “Ruckus Wireless believes that the LWA initiative has great potential for the growth of the wireless industry. We support Alcatel-Lucent’s initiative to commercialize the integration and convergence of Wi-Fi and cellular networks, and will focus on introducing technologies that enhance Ruckus’ leading carrier-class Wi-Fi networks for enterprise and service provider customers.”
Alcatel-Lucent is demonstrating LWA at Mobile World Congress, exhibiting downlink throughput of 600 Mbps using commercially available Wi-Fi access points aggregated with Alcatel-Lucent’s 9764 MCO outdoor metro cell and a mobile device powered by a next-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon LTE modem.
Alcatel-Lucent also presents the capabilities of Wireless Unified Networks (Wi-Fi boost and LAA) as well as its new multi-standard enterprise and residential small cells and compact metro cells on booth (3K10) in Hall 3 of the Fira Gran Via at Mobile World Congress 2015.
Other technologies from Alcatel-Lucent on display include CloudBand management system; virtualized, massively scalable Mobile and Wi-Fi gateways; virtualized IMS solutions; and Motive customer experience management and big network analytics.
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