Alcatel-Lucent and NEC will form a joint venture to focus on the development of Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless broadband access solutions. These solutions will support the network evolution of leading customers around the world, such as NTT DoCoMo, who has already selected NEC as a vendor for commercial service deployment of its Super 3G (LTE) project, and Verizon, with whom Alcatel-Lucent has already initiated a LTE trial program.
The companies said their joint venture could accelerate the availability of next-generation wireless solutions.
Leveraging the common LTE product strategy and platform of the joint venture, Alcatel-Lucent and NEC will each manage delivery, project execution and dedicated support to their respective customers.
Under this joint venture, the two companies will pool their existing research & development resources and leverage market-proven expertise in key technologies on which next-generation wireless access is based, such as IP, multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA).
Through this joint development effort, Alcatel-Lucent and NEC are affirming their R&D investment commitments and combining them to accelerate product innovation, differentiation and performance. The goal of the two companies is to achieve faster commercial availability of LTE solutions, serve an expanded, global customer base, and establish a leading position in the early development phase of the LTE market.
Alcatel-Lucent and NEC expect first commercial releases available in 2009, and will leverage their wireless expertise to ensure smooth integration of LTE technology with the existing W-CDMA/HSPA and CDMA/EV-DO networks of their respective customers.
In the future, the collaboration is expected to expand into end-to-end third-generation (3G) CDMA-based solutions, as well as a wide range of advanced IP-based solutions, such as optical transmission, IP service routing, and IMS-based communications services.
The companies will also investigate collaborating in developing IT solutions for service providers – such as service application solutions (e.g. streaming, e-commerce, etc.)- together with the servers and storage products on which those solutions depend.
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