- New breakthroughs in the 5G research and development
promise network ready to meet demands of the connected
world
PARIS, Aug. 3, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcatel-Lucent
(Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) has completed another industry
leading step on the path to delivering 5G networks. As announced
today, the 5GNOW project, with technical leadership by
Alcatel-Lucent, has been awarded the highest scientific excellence
honor by the European Commission for advancing development of the
next generation of mobile networks (5G) and strengthening European
competitiveness. The project, initiated in 2012, was completed this
month and delivered a big step toward achieving 5G networks.
In just a few years mobile networks are expected to support
billions of different devices and types of data traffic. Today's
networks can support applications such as video and file downloads,
however they were not designed with the flexibility to also support
the expected myriad new applications. 5G networks must be designed
to flexibly support this video traffic while also supporting the
continuing growth of smartphone and tablet traffic, low-end sensor
devices, smart wearables, connected cars, and the connection of
industrial robots across wide geographical areas. New innovations,
such as those pioneered by Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs in the 5GNOW
project, will allow new communications to support the wide variety
of application demanded.
The 5GNOW program has identified recommendations for how we can
increase the number of devices that are connected to the network by
100 times over what we can support today and for how we can make
the network react 50 times more quickly. This will enable smart
cities, smart manufacturing, and Internet-of Things-enabled
environments to have wireless enabled sensors that can all connect
to the network in real time without having to schedule the delivery
of their traffic. The main results of the project will be presented
at the forthcoming 3GPP 5G workshop in September and will be
implemented and expanded through the Fantastic-5G project which
aims to establish a broader ecosystem and accelerate
commercialization.
Tod Sizer, head of wireless
research at Bell Labs said: "Mobile networks are quickly becoming
our lifeline for all types of communications. Things such as
growing industrial usage, traffic cams, sensors as well as the
continued growth of consumer data, are going to severely challenge
current networks. Our plan for 5G is to enhance the network in a
converged way that will allow service providers to maintain the
quality users expect, deliver the capacity they demand, and provide
the ability to support new applications and services, such as IoT
and M2M type."
In addition to the 5GNOW project, for the last several years
Alcatel-Lucent and its industrial research arm Bell Labs have been
active in a range of key research initiatives with several
universities, industry stakeholders, standards bodies and industry
consortia. Recent examples include joining the Technische
Universität (TU) Dresden's 5G Lab and collaboration agreements with
Korean Telecom and NTT DOCOMO.
Many of the consortia are initiated or recognized by the EU
commission, most of them in connection with the 5G PPP. These
include:
- FANTASTIC-5G
- 5G Norma
- mmMAGIC
- Flex5GWare
- Metis-II
About the 5GNOW Project
Today's dominant air interface, Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM), is the basis for LTE and LTE-Advanced and has
a tightly synchronized structure that requires a significant amount
of signalling overhead to establish a connection. This enables the
high data rate transmission required for web and video based
traffic but does not support the efficient transmission of short
burst and non-urgent traffic associated with an Internet of Things
(IoT) as well as today's short burst traffic such as Instant
Messaging (e.g. WhatsApp), acknowledgements, or 'keep alive'
messaging. The 5GNOW proposals modify OFDM with adaptive filtering
and advanced signal processing to address both sets of
requirements, resulting in an air interface that:
- Increases the maximum number of device connections to an
individual cell site by a factor of over 100 times
- Decreases the delay associated with connectionless access to
less than 1 millisecond for Machine-Type-Communications (MTC)
ABOUT ALCATEL-LUCENT (EURONEXT PARIS AND NYSE: ALU)
Alcatel-Lucent is the leading IP networking,
ultra-broadband access and cloud technology specialist. We are
dedicated to making global communications more innovative,
sustainable and accessible for people, businesses and governments
worldwide. Our mission is to invent and deliver trusted networks to
help our customers unleash their value. Every success has its
network.
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