AT&T picks Alcatel for Colombia LMDS deployment

AT&T Latin America will use Alcatel’s second-generation local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) fixed-wireless technology to deliver high-speed data services to small and medium-sized enterprise customers in Medellin and Bucaramanga, Colombia.

The Alcatel technology includes a base station and customer premises equipment (CPE), as well as network and service management.

“This is the first win we’ve had in Latin America with the new LMDS platform” that Alcatel is unveiling at this week’s Wireless Communications Association Broadband Now! conference in Boston, said George Hendry, vice president of business development for Alcatel’s fixed wireless business unit. The second-generation product is the end result of Alcatel’s acquisition and integration of Newbridge, Hendry said.

“It’s a year since the acquisition, … and we’re pretty proud of the fact that we accomplished this pretty much on the timeline that we set out to get it done,” he said.

AT&T will use broadband fixed wireless as “a tool to enhance their presence in the market and to penetrate a new customer base that they haven’t had access to before,” Hendry said. “It’s a good example of a well-established operator that’s going out of region and positioning themselves as a competitive access provider (CAP0 in a new region and using wireless to do that.”

With much of the U.S.-based fixed-wireless industry in an economic slump, many wireless operators and vendors are looking for international market opportunities. But Hendry expects that to change in the U.S. as competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) move to wireless as a way to compete with incumbents.

“The person who owns the copper is the one who is successful, and a competitive access provider using the incumbent’s copper has problems,” he said. “All around the world now, you have the competitive local exchange carrier who needs access to customers. They used fixed broadband as a technique.”