UGLY MOBILE masts and bulky base stations may become eyesores of the past thanks to key contributions by an Irish research group to smaller, energy-saving network components launched yesterday.
“This is a radical overhaul of how mobile networks are built,” Adolfo Hernandez, president of Alcatel-Lucent EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region, told The Irish Times.
“If you look at the way networks are built today, the ‘real estate’ requirement is quite big. We’ve gone in with a completely different approach.”
Alcatel-Lucent said its miniaturised LightRadio antennas, amplifiers and processors eliminate the need for standalone mobile masts.
The hatbox-sized units can be discreetly mounted on streetlamps, buildings, telephone poles or bus shelters.
The company said the small units would deliver combined 2G, 3G and 4G networks, rather than needing separate networks, and require half as much energy to run.
Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs research group in Dublin developed the major innovations in communications antenna design and energy management that form a critical part of the LightYear platform.
“This was an Irish-led project,” said Mr Hernandez, and included contributions from research teams at other Bell Labs centres in Europe, the United States and China.
Bell Labs, the historic American research lab behind such pivotal technology developments as the transistor, established an Irish centre in Blanchardstown in 2005 with €25 million in support funding from IDA Ireland.
Last year, Alcatel-Lucent, which owns Bell Labs, announced it would add 70 additional research positions at the lab over the following five years.
Mr Hernandez said LightRadio would ready networks for the bandwidth demands coming over the next few years as operators rollout the next generation of mobile multimedia technology, 4G, which is expected to increase consumer demand for video.
The new platform also could revolutionise the developing world, as cheaper networks can be built anywhere there is access to power.
Mr Hernandez expects a gradual adoption of the new networks and for hybrid systems, a mix of old and new, to be the norm for the next few years.
