During a press conference this morning at the Mobile World Congress, Alcatel-Lucent and NEC today announced that they will join forces on LTE and broadband infrastructure gear. Specifically, the two firms, which have already collaborated on an LTE trial, will pool their R&D on MIMO (multiple in/multiple out), OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiple access) and other IP technologies. Both companies said that by teaming on their efforts they will speed deployment of LTE, which they expect to have commercially available in 2009.
This collaboration will likely impact operators such as Verizon Wireless and NTT DoCoMo. Lucent is currently involved in an LTE trial with Verizon Wireless and NEC is working with NTT DoCoMo on its Super G LTE trial.
The two companies say that they will contribute equally to the R&D budget for this collaboration and it will be jointly managed. However both companies will be responsible for the fulfillment and execution of their network technology with their respective customers. -Sue