Lucent enters new wireless data space

Lucent Technologies' decision to acquire the remaining 80% of WaveAccess, after taking a 20% stake in the company in May, could forge new ground in the wireless data world. While both companies remain tight-lipped on details of their developments during the past six months, they revealed some general direction.

The product they've worked on will be Internet protocol-oriented and operate in the licensed 1 GHz-plus range worldwide, said Nitin J. Shah, data networking vice president for Lucent's wireless networks group. "It complements our strengths in circuit-switched," he said. Slated to be commercially available in early 1999, the as-yet-unnamed product will offer Lucent's operator customers another wireless data access option.

The experience of both companies fits well together. "Lucent has expertise in carrier systems, and we have expertise in radio systems," said Allan Scott, vice president of marketing and sales for WaveAccess.

The product will be designed for small premises with low-tier data needs and won't compete with the local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) industry, for which Lucent supplies equipment, Shah said.

But according to recent Renaissance Worldwide research, the pending Lucent product may bump heads with LMDS. "The majority of key data applications can all be conducted at less than 2 Mb/s," said Andrew Cole, senior manager of Renaissance's wireless practice. The planned product then might be able to address most data needs and therefore could challenge some LMDS markets. "It could be a strong alternative to [digital subscriber line] and LMDS," Cole said.

It also could have technological advantages over LMDS, where high frequencies are subject to variations due to weather and have a shorter range. Using lower frequencies, Lucent can avoid those tenuation issues and penetrate in-building environments better, Cole said.

However, Cole warned that in the future, some carriers might experience capacity issues. Now, most have available spectrum they could use for such data applications, but the trend today of increasing spectrum use per subscriber may put a crunch on that availability in the future.

WaveAccess will function as a separate business unit within Lucent and will operate out of its two existing offices in Israel and Wellesley, Mass. It also will continue marketing branded products, which include point-to-point systems, and also may continue offering products to other companies on an OEM basis, Scott said.