Alcatel-Lucent, Proxim expand backhaul portfolios

The mobile backhaul market is heating up as equipment suppliers bet that wireless operators are going to have to include mobile components as part of their backhaul solutions, either due to financial or geographical considerations.
Fresh off DragonWave Inc.’s $9.5 million acquisition of Axerra Networks Inc., Alcatel-Lucent and Proxim Wireless Corp. released backhaul news. Alcatel-Lucent announced enhancements to its “AnyG to LTE” radio access network solution, while Proxim announced it was getting back into the licensed mobile backhaul space. As networks become IP-based in order to accommodate the large amounts of data people will consume wirelessly, operators are having to overhaul their existing backhaul solutions to be able to carry all of that traffic. At the same time, operators have to continue to support their legacy networks.
Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent introduced the 7705 Service Aggregation Router (SAR)-18 to its mobile backhaul portfolio, along with end-to-end, unified network and policy management from the radio access network to the packet core. The backhaul portfolio is part of Alcatel-Lucent’s High Leverage Network architecture, designed to help operators leverage existing assets while moving to IP-based networks and offering new revenue-generating services.
“Alcatel-Lucent understands the challenges faced by mobile network operators and has enhanced its solutions with ‘Any G to LTE’ capabilities to ensure service providers are not caught in an expensive transport bottleneck trap as they upgrade 2G systems to 3G/3G+ in advance of LTE rollouts,” the company said in a press release.
The biggest strength of the family of products is that it supports legacy and new fiber or microwave-based solutions, all in one management system, which removes the complexity associated with managing different transport technologies, said Gary Leonard, senior director of product marketing for Alcatel-Lucent’s IP mobile solutions.
The network vendor said it also has moved into the No. 1 market-share position, according to research firm Infonetics. The company estimates Alcatel-Lucent now holds 23% of the worldwide Ethernet cell site gateway and router revenue for the first half of the year. “In 2010, we expect Ethernet mobile backhaul to increase 8% year over year to $5.2 billion, making up 88% of total backhaul equipment spending, with the biggest growth from Ethernet cell site routers, which grew 231% and microwave Ethernet, at 367% over 2008,” said Michael Howard, principal analyst and co-founder of Infonetics Research.. “Since last year, we’ve seen a significant shift in thinking by mobile operators and transport providers around the world who have come to trust IP-Ethernet more, and are now fully engaged in deploying and planning IP/Ethernet backhaul as the single backhaul to carry voice, data, and video traffic for 2G, 3G, WiMAX, and LTE. In the important Ethernet cell site gateway and router category, Alcatel-Lucent held onto its No. 1 position with 23% of 1H2010 worldwide revenue.”
Proxim
For its part, Proxim said it has re-entered the licensed wireless backhaul space, introducing its Tsunami GX800 licensed point-to-point microwave backhaul products. Proxim –said theTsunami family of products can deliver ultra-high capacity of 622 Mbps aggregate capacity, and can support from 6 GHz to 38 GHz frequencies.