Lucent optical kit to reduce mobile network downtime

And cut costs

By John Leyden, 20th February 2001

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Lucent Technologies today introduced a high-speed optical networking product designed to cut the operating costs of mobile network operators while reducing network downtime.

The WaveStar Wireless Network Solution is said to provide wireless carriers with the tools to create and maintain their own high-capacity fibre-optic networks to connect base stations and mobile switching centres to long-distance networks.

Could it be right place, right time for the financially-challenged networking equipment maker? It's not had much joy lately flogging optical kit into its trad telco base - downturn in demand, not quick enough with the product refresh and all that. But the wireless providers could be a better bet.

As Lucent points out, wireless providers will need will "need to dramatically increase the capacity and reliability of their back-haul networks," as traffic increases and 3G services are rolled out. "Optical technology is the only cost-effective way to do this," Lucent claims.

The company says its technology has the performance headroom needed for operators to begin providing advanced network services over third generation (3G) wireless networks.

And it promises carriers the ability to save 50 per cent of their backbone network operating costs over five-years.

The WaveStar Wireless Network Solution primarily uses synchronous optical networking (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) transmission systems which
operate at speeds ranging from 155 Mbps to 10 Gbps. It also uses dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) systems for networks with even higher bandwidth requirements. ®