Alcatel-Lucent base station tech mixes and matches three generations of wireless

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) today announced the culmination of its software-defined radio efforts, unveiling today an upgrade module for its GSM-UMTS base stations that will support its entire spate of 3GPP radio technologies from 2G to 4G.

The multi-carrier, or MC-TRX, module essentially replaces the multiple channel cards for any base station the vendor has made since 1999. And rather than supporting a single technology, the module gives operators a 20 MHz swathe over which it can mix and match any cmbination of GSM, high-speed packet access (HSPA) or long-term evolution (LTE).

“We’re seeing today a lot of operators who are moving from one technology to another,” said Andre Mechaly, vice president of wireless strategy for at Alcatel-Lucent. In Europe, for instance, many operators are looking to re-farm their 900 MHz spectrum for HSPA services as their data traffic increases. AT&T (NYSE:T) is doing a similar 3G overhaul with its cellular spectrum in high data-traffic markets. And T-Mobile USA (NYSE:DT) eventually plans to replace a portion of its GSM network at the PCS frequencies with LTE. “Our base stations have always had the ability to receive an upgrade from one technology to another, but we are introducing the capability of using the same module for both technologies,” Mechaly said.

Multi-radio support on the same base station infrastructure isn’t unique to Alcatel-Lucent. All of the major wireless vendors have released next-generation eNode B platforms that can support upgrades from one technology to another or even multiple simultaneous technologies, and many of them have been in the field for more than year. Nokia Siemens Networks (NYSE:NOK, NYSE:SI) released its multimode Flexi architecture in 2008 and a multi-radio platform in 2009, while Ericsson’s (NASDAQ:ERIC) RBS 6000 multi-standard base station is now being installed in worldwide networks including Verizon Wireless’ (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) new LTE deployment. Huawei’s most recent CDMA and UMTS deployments in the US and Canada all use software upgradable gear.

What sets Alcatel-Lucent’s architecture apart, though, is its backward compatibility, Mechaly said. While its competitor’s next-generation gear is just that, next-generation, ALU has been innovating on the same basic base station architecture since 1999, when it adopted its software defined radio development strategy. SDR may be common among other vendors now, but only in newer platforms. By comparison, every GSM and UMTS Alcatel-Lucent base station has built in the last 10 years—some 700,000 boxes—can receive the new module. That’s almost 100% of ALU’s active deployed footprint, Mechaly said.

Mechaly also pointed out the flexibility of the MC-TRX. Its multi-carrier capabilities toss out the old notion or tripartite carrier modules, each hosting a different sector or technology. Software not only defines the radio standard but also the individual spectrum resources assigned to each technologies. For each module, a carrier basically has 20 MHz with which to play. For instance, 10 MHz could be assigned to a large wideband LTE carrier while the remaining 10 MHz could be divided among HSPA carriers or a batch of GSM channels. And as a carrier’s needs change, that configuration could be changed remotely, shifting GSM resources to HSPA or LTE. The baseband as well as the radios are software programmable and the power amplifiers of the module are designed to support the full range of standards.

That backward compatibility could give Alcatel-Lucent a definite advantage over its competitors within ALU’s installed customer base, but it might be a limited advantage. Alcatel-Lucent announced the CDMA equivalent of multi-radio LTE support last year, and it also happened to win half of VZW’s LTE contract. But even though Verizon’s CDMA network is rife with Lucent base stations, Verizon won’t be upgrading them to LTE. Rather it is building its LTE network on its new 700 MHz spectrum, necessitating a new network. Multi-frequency support is still an elusive technology in the wireless industry, since no current power amplifier could support a broad swath of frequencies effectively. That limits the appeal of multi-mode and multi-carrier technologies to those operators who know they’ll be moving from one technology to the other on the same band.