ALU wins on both sides of America Movil
Will be a supplier for the giant's Latin American deployments of both LTE and high speed wireline broadband
Published: 6 February, 2012
READ MORE: Americas | Alcatel-Lucent | Broadband | Infrastructure | LTE
Alcatel-Lucent has won major deals on both the fixed and wireless sides of Latin America's largest operator, the Telmex/America Movil group. The contracts justify the French vendor's increasing convergence of all its IP infrastructure activities and highlight the advantages for vendors which can support fixed/mobile roll-outs, potentially tapping into common cores in future.
On the mobile side, ALU has been selected by America Movil as an LTE supplier, initially supporting a deployment in Puerto Rico using the lightRadio platform. This relies on compact antenna/radio units sharing virtualized baseband processing resource and is designed to reduce cost and power, and increase flexibility, in mobile broadband networks.
America Movil and its Claro brand is likely to rely on a range of suppliers as it starts to plan LTE roll-outs across its huge Latin American footprint. Its main rival Telefonica is also carrying out extensive trials involving most major OEMs. However, the choice of lightRadio for an early contract, which will serve as a testbed for the whole group, is an important endorsement for ALU, and for its innovative but as-yet unproven 'deconstructed RAN' approach.
Osvaldo Di Campli, president of the vendor's Latin American unit, said in a statement: "Through our experience of designing, delivering and operating LTE networks with customers in every major geography, Alcatel-Lucent has developed unrivalled domain expertise around all facets of 4G deployments. We look forward to sharing this knowledge with America Movil as LTE continues its roll-out across Latin America."
Meanwhile, Mexico-based Latin American fixed line operator, Telmex (which is majority controlled by America Movil) has selected ALU to support an upgraded broadband network, involving technologies such as VDSL2, GPON and IP/MPLS Carrier Ethernet. Telmex wants this upgrade to support more reliable high speed services for rural areas, speeds of up to 100Mbps for all customers, and significant savings in maintenance costs. Telmex promises an "aggressive effort" to expand VDSL2 and fiber coverage during this year, in Mexico and other territories.
While the two new ALU deals are entirely separate at this time, insiders at America Movil are discussing ways to converge IP platforms in some key markets and plan for a future when there can be far greater sharing of fixed and mobile infrastructure, to maximize capacity and efficiencies, and support new services offerings.
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