Seamless broadband and the ability to take content and applications across fixed and mobile networks at will have been talked about for a while, but remain in somewhat of a “Jetsons” zone. Alcatel-Lucent wants to make the future now with a new ecosystem of infrastructure, devices, content and applications that it’s calling the ng Connect Program.
The ecosystem, launched at Mobile World Congress this week, is meant to solve the issues necessary to enable subscribers to stream or access content using mobile phones, computers, cars, gaming systems and more, whenever they might happen to be. And so, the alliance focuses on a number of technologies, including GPON, LTE and other high-bandwidth technologies.
One example of the possible applications arising from the ecosystem lies in the automotive sector – connecting automobiles to new services through tomorrow's broadband networks. "No more hard drive in the car, no more out-of-date navigation and mapping system, and no more visits to the dealer to update your software," said Dan Dodge, CEO of hg Connect member QNX Software Systems. "The car becomes an Internet terminal, an edge device, providing users with real-time access to the latest applications, data and content. LTE complements our own vision of enabling cars that dynamically connect to the Internet cloud, to consumer devices, and to one another."
The program will promote a variety of pre-integrated solutions that incorporate new innovations in network, device and software technologies.
"As we move into the next phase of the evolution of broadband networks with the advent of ultra-high-bandwidth systems such as 4G and GPON, it is critical that a broad spectrum of companies – including those from industries that are not normally associated – come together in a strong ecosystem that can effectively innovate, remove business and technical barriers and define new business models to accelerate mass adoption of new services and devices," said Tim Krause, CMO at Alcatel-Lucent. "The establishment of the ng Connect program is an important step in our strategy to create an open ecosystem so that the trusted capabilities of service providers can be combined with the innovation of the Web to bring whole new classes of services to market, services that can leverage the growing capabilities of service aware IP networks, IMS and more. The ng Connect Program is dedicated to bringing this ecosystem to life."
The ng Connect Program's initial phase has three goals: accelerating deployment of new services and devices through pre-integration and validation; identifying and promoting new revenue streams through innovative business models; and broadening the wireless broadband device landscape to include consumer electronics products, industrial and consumer equipment for machine-to-machine communications, and automotive connectivity. The program will showcase the next generation connected user experience through proof-of-concept solutions.
