Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) scored a 700 MHz public-safety LTE contract with the city of Charlotte, N.C. The contract, which was approved by the city council, calls for the vendor to provide hosted access to an LTE core.
The city received a $17 million grant from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) to fund the buildout of the network. The most interesting piece of the deal is the hosted core requirement. Because of the large expense associated with an LTE core, first-responders don't want to purchase and manage their own. As such, vendors are offering to host an LTE core on behalf of public-safety agencies, which enalbes them to avoid the upfront cost of buying their own or finding personnel to manage it.
For more:
- see this Urgent Communications article
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