Alcatel is coordinating the European Union MUSE Research and Development project, which groups an international consortium of 30 partners. The objective of MUSE (MUlti Service access Everywhere) is research and development of a future low-cost, multi-service access and edge network, enabling the delivery of broadband services to every European citizen.
Innovative access architecture and functions will be investigated which will allow the European telecommunications industry to offer services such as e-learning, teleworking, video conferencing, gaming, or video-on-demand in a scalable and cost-effective way.
"Broadband is a key enabler of the information society and economy," says Niel Ransom, Chief Technology Officer, Alcatel. "As the worldwide leader in broadband access, we are proud to coordinate this project, aiming to develop the technologies which will ensure an even wider availability for broadband access to every citizen across the European Union, even in low-density areas."
Alcatel will build on its knowledge in IP access architecture, DSL and fibre access to design new access architectures, prototypes of novel access platforms and functions on top of access nodes to enable multi-services, and will contribute to lab trials and standardisation.
"A diversity of complementary technologies for the delivery of broadband services is emerging. In order to succeed in the objective of 'broadband for all`, an end-to-end solution needs to be elaborated," explains MUSE coordinator Peter Vetter, Alcatel. "With almost all major European players in the consortium, MUSE is well positioned to create a consensus on the future access network for Europe."
MUSE is organised in four subprojects. In addition to the overall coordination of MUSE, Alcatel leads the subproject "access architecture", which will drive the overall research direction to ensure coherence and interoperability. Innovative solutions and concepts will be demonstrated and evaluated in end-to-end lab trials in three implementation oriented sub-projects with various deployment scenarios: a "migration scenario" from ATM to packet (Ethernet, IPv4, IPv6) also coordinated by Alcatel, a "non-legacy scenario" optimised for Ethernet and IPv6 coordinated by Ericsson, and a "high bandwidth scenario" integrating new access technologies (VDSL, optical fibre loop) coordinated by Lucent Technologies` Bell Labs.
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MUSE is an integrated project of the "Information Society Technologies" (IST) priority of the 6th Framework Program (FP6). It is part of the "Broadband for All" IST Strategic Objective. 30 partners from industry and academia are involved in the project. The two-year first phase of the project is valued at 34 million euro, of which 18.6 million euro is funded by the European Commission. MUSE addresses the network architecture, techno-economic issues, access nodes, solutions for the first mile, and interworking with the home and SOHO network. http://www.ist-muse.org/.
Information Society Technologies (IST) in EU`s 6th Framework Programme (FP6)
The focus of FP6`s IST part is on the future generation of technologies in which computers and networks will be integrated into the everyday environment, rendering accessible a multitude of services and applications through easy-to-use human interfaces. This vision of "ambient intelligence" places the user at the centre of future developments. The research effort aims to bring IST applications and services to everyone, every home and to all businesses.
Alcatel
Alcatel provides communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications to their customers or to their employees. Alcatel leverages its leading position in fixed and mobile broadband networks, applications and services to bring value to its customers in the framework of a broadband world. With sales of 12.5 billion euro in 2003, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries.