Alcatel-Lucent today announced the launch of the ng Connect Program, an initiative designed to establish an ecosystem of infrastructure, devices, content and applications for both mobile and fixed broadband networks, including 4G, LTE, GPON and other technologies. Members of the program include HP, Samsung, 4DK, Buzznet, chumby, connect2Media, dimedis, Fishlabs, ZNX, Signexx, Total Immersion, TuneWiki and Words & Numbers. These companies will help speed up the development of new applications to mobile phones, computers, cars, gaming systems and more, Alcatel-Lucent said.
"Through all of that dialogue [about LTE], we really found there was a void in terms of the discussion needed to happen to bring industries outside of the telecom world into how make use of all of this connectivity. I was never really satisfied that LTE was going to be about just data cards," Derek Kuhn, vice president of emerging technology & media with Alcatel-Lucent, in an interview with FierceBroadband Wireless. "By bringing in various companies, I think we have a really good opportunity to drive innovation in a way we haven't seen before."
The program will initially focus on five areas: consumer media and entertainment, enterprise collaboration and e-healthcare, automotive connectivity, digital signage and computing experience. In its initial phase, the program will work to accelerate the deployment of new services and devices through integration and validation, identify and promote new revenue stream through different business models and broaden the wireless broadband device category to include consumer electronics products, industrial and consumer equipment for machine-to-machine communications and automotive connectivity. The ng Connect Program will then showcase next-generation experiences through proof-of-concept solutions.
For more:
- see this release
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