The Wimax Summit 2006: Deploying Broadband Wireless Access, is being held February 21 to 24 at the Sofitel Bercy hotel in Paris. The event will take place at the same time as the 8th edition of International SIP Conference and Alcatel’s Enterprise Forum.
Alcatel is demonstrating its enterprise mobility solutions at the Palais de Congres in Paris. Alcatel’s enterprise mobility solutions are based on open standards for voice, video and data, including SIP, Bluetooth, WiFi and WiMAX.Alcatel also unveiled its Evolium WiMAX base station, based on 802.16e. It claims this will be commercially available in midyear, although it is not certain that certification for the mobile standard will even have begun by then.
Alcatel, like Motorola, must decide whether to launch a pre-certified product in order to gain early market lead, or wait for WiMAX Forum interoperatibilty testing, not expected to happen until sometime next year.
Alcatel resells Alvarion equipment for fixed WiMAX and Navini mobile broadband system. Alcatel has also signed partnerships with Samsung, the main creator of the pre-802.16e technology Wi-Bro, and Korea Telecom. Alcatel is expected to focus heavily on Wi-Bro interoperability, and integration with its cellular systems. Alcatel plans to build its own 802.16e system via the Evolium line. Alcatel and Intel are working together on 802.16e nomadic and mobile WiMAX solutions.
Evolium will support fixed, nomadic, and mobile usage and will be targeted in particular at developing economies, where Alcatel is strong. It has an important joint development with Indian technology institute C-DOT, focused on low cost user devices. In a live showcase at 3GSM, Alcatel demonstrated its compact oudoor base station - equipped with smart antenna technology - delivering video streams over the air to laptops equipped with PCMCIA cards.
An interoperability testing campaign is underway to ensure that Intel-powered WiMAX devices will work seamlessly with Alcatel’s WiMAX infrastructure, and the two giants are pursuing co-marketing activities.
In other news, Alcatel bagged the lead role in SBC’s Project Lightspeed for IPTV routing. Today, Cisco Systems announced plans to beef up its IPTV attack, with a systems-integration business for service providers and new metro Ethernet products. Cisco’s ME 6524, launched today, is based on technology from the flagship Catalyst 6500 switches. The “ME” series is aimed at carrier Metro Ethernet buildouts.
Carriers could get equal access — if they worked together. Why can’t consumers get 100 Mbps Metro Ethernet service for $39.95/month and 1 Mbps Mobile WiMAX for $19.95/month?
Now THAT’s a peace dividend!
