French firm eyes data explosion

French firm eyes data explosion

Alcatel-Lucent SA, the French telecommunications equipment firm, is targeting three strategic growth areas in Thailand in the wake of full commercial third-generation (3G) mobile services on the international standard 2.1-gigahertz frequency.

Optical networks, small-cell base stations and 4G network equipment are gaining popularity for mobile operators as they look to roll out their 3G networks this year, said Se{aac}bastien Laurent, the president and managing director of Alcatel-Lucent (Thailand).

"Thailand is strategically important for us in Asia, contributing to our global growth," he said.

Mobile operators are gearing up to replace their existing 40-Gbps fibre-optic network capacity with 100 Gbps to increase internet connection capacity and ease traffic congestion.

Mr Laurent said exploding growth in mobile data demand pushed by the proliferation of smartphones and tablets coupled with a surge in data usage will double the country's wireless data traffic this year.

The industry predicts that global mobile data demand will surge 25-fold by 2016.

Thailand's existing 2G subscribers number 70 million, and there are 3 million 3G customers. Those figures should shift significantly once commercial 3G mobile becomes available.

But Mr Laurent said overall revenue for mobile operators is not increasing in line with the industry's growth.

Therefore, operators need to upgrade their network infrastructure to improve service quality and lower costs.

Alcatel-Lucent is offering a 100-Gbps optical network it claims is the industry's first of its kind.

The company plans to launch a 400-Gbps network capacity to maintain its leading position in the market.

Mr Laurent said small-cell networks are another growth area in the 3G wireless broadband era thanks to their higher coverage capacity and less required time for installation.

Thailand has 6 million mobile base stations, but the number of small cell bases will likely surpass conventional base stations.

Mr Laurent said the upcoming 4G technology is tipped to be the next big opportunity, and Alcatel-Lucent is one of the top two vendors in long-term evolution network technology.

The move by the Myanmar government to liberalise the country's telecommunications industry will also likely spur network construction demand, with Thai telecoms keen to jump into the market, he said.

Do you like the content of this article?
COMMENT