Device Arena

At the WiMAX World Americas 2008 trade show and exhibition today Alcatel-Lucent is reaffirming its leadership in the worldwide market for WiMAX 802.16e (Rev-e) wireless broadband infrastructure, having secured more commercial agreements than any other vendor. Alcatel-Lucent comes into the marquee event with strong worldwide commercial momentum, having secured five new contract wins since mid-year –- including VTEL in Georgia and Delta Telecom in Azerbaijan — bringing its industry-leading tally of commercial deployment agreements to 30.

Of these Rev-e network deployments, four are already in commercial service, and that number is expected to double by year-end.

“Alcatel-Lucent has now shipped nearly 9,000 Rev-e base stations and already has enough equipment in service to support more than half a million wireless broadband subscribers on five continents,” said Karim El Naggar, Vice President and head of Alcatel-Lucent’s WiMAX activities. “Rev-e technology has moved into a new phase of commercial maturity, with our customers realizing revenue from services supported by stable, industrialized Wave 2-ready mobile WiMAX infrastructure.”

The event comes as Alcatel-Lucent’s leadership in the fast-solidifying Mobile WiMAX sector garners wide industry recognition. Infonetics Research published a report in September noting that Alcatel-Lucent was in the top tier of Mobile WiMAX vendors and pulling away from the rest of the pack, confirming earlier analyses by industry analysts at Current Analysis and IDC. “The big WiMAX story of the quarter is the huge ramp-up in mobile WiMAX equipment revenues by Alcatel-Lucent, which more than doubled its revenue in 2Q08,” said the report authored by Infonetics analyst Richard Webb.

As a result of its strong market position, Alcatel-Lucent also has established itself as a key driver of the development of the WiMAX ecosystem, with its Open Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) Program becoming one of the industry’s premiere showcases and test-beds for WiMAX terminals from many of the world’s leading WiMAX device vendors.

To further enrich the WiMAX eco-system, Alcatel-Lucent today announced the new Alcatel-Lucent Seal of Interoperability Acceptance for Commercial Services (SIACS), a stamp of approval for terminal devices successfully completing Alcatel-Lucent’s rigorous interoperability testing regime. Devices featuring both MIMO and beam forming from Accton, Quanta, Siemens and ZyXEL have all received the Alcatel-Lucent SIACS.

Alcatel-Lucent