Alcatel-Lucent Releases Long-Haul Microwave Solution

April 3, 2008

Alcatel-Lucent detailed enhancements to its market-leading long-haul microwave solution, the Alcatel-Lucent MDR 8000, to support operators’ seamless migration from time division multiplexing (TDM) to Ethernet transport over wireless transport networks. Building on Alcatel-Lucent’s best-selling digital microwave radio technology, the Alcatel-Lucent MDR 8000 Release 2, provides an evolution path allowing operators to maximize their current investment and to quickly enable enhanced, new revenue-generating IP services. Additionally, operators benefit from enhanced backhauling capabilities for mobile and WiMax applications, while maximizing network efficiency.

The Alcatel-Lucent MDR-8000 is designed to meet the most stringent network requirements for mobile backhaul and long-haul trunking of different segments including homeland security, defense, critical utility and energy infrastructure, and transportation. With this new release, operators can leverage enhanced flexibility to tailor their microwave networks according to the bandwidth needs driven by innovative data services and traditional services, while retaining high-level backward compatibility. Featuring dual Gigabit Ethernet ports and 32 DS1 circuit interfaces, the MDR-8000 allows operators to dynamically reallocate capacity in-service with no disruption as the transport rate for IP services grows.

“Delivering value for our customers to meet their technology and quality of service requirements is our commitment,” said Philippe Dumont, Vice-President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Wireless Transmission activities. “The latest release of the MDR 8000, which has been proven successful, further confirms our focus on advancing our product portfolio to meet operators’ increasing capacity and flexibility needs driven by IP-based service adoption.”

Providing multiple interface options (DS1, DS3, OC-3, and 10/100/1000 Ethernet interfaces), the Alcatel-Lucent MDR 8000 operates in the widest range of frequencies from 2 GHz to 11 GHz, covering all microwave bands per FCC Part 101, Industry Canada and NTIA. In addition, it operates in unlicensed bands at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz, as well as the market-specific bands such as 1900 MHz for Personal Communications Service (PCS), 1700 MHz for US Federal Government and 2.3 GHz for Wireless Communications Service (WCS). This allows operators to build homogenous microwave networks that are easy to manage, and maintain, while lowering cost through reduced spares and training.