Alcatel-Lucent launches world's first “green DSL”

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today launched a very innovative high-capacity and eco-efficient digital subscriber line (DSL) platform - enabling service providers to deliver tomorrow's applications over their installed copper base, all while consuming up to 25% less power compared to conventional DSL solutions.

Alcatel-Lucent's green DSL leverages the reduced power consumption of its latest generation of DSL line cards, the company's unique distributed DSLAM concept and Alcatel-Lucent's Smart DSL technology.

“Today, standards exist that allow modems to go in a low-power mode when user traffic is low. However, re-activating these modems causes power fluctuations - resulting in cross-talk and destabilising the network,” said J"urgen Lison, Vice-President of Alcatel-Lucent's ISAM product unit. “Alcatel-Lucent's green DSL provides operators with a unique, end-to-end solution that overcomes these issues - enabling a significant reduction of the modems' power consumption across a service provider's subscriber base without causing any line stability issues. This is a value proposition that cannot be provided by any other vendor in the industry today.”

Not only does Alcatel-Lucent's latest ISAM release support a significant power reduction compared to conventional DSL solutions, it is also the first commercially-available DSL platform for ETSI markets that delivers 50Mbs to all users - with peaks up to 100Mbs - anywhere in the network because of its new, high-capacity, very high-speed DSL (VDSL) line cards and its support of VDSL bonding technology across the line card. This ISAM release incorporates the company's third generation of VDSL line cards, highlighting Alcatel-Lucent's innovative technology and market leadership in the DSL space, while supporting its applications enablement strategy through physical layer synchronisation for mobile backhaul and enhanced support for business services.

“Operators challenged by recessionary and fibre business case limitations want to optimise investment in their existing copper networks while also offering sustained higher bandwidth over an extended reach. In conjunction with the expected growth of FTTB, VDSL2 remains an important option to support higher bandwidth services to residences and enterprises and for mobile backhaul,” noted Kamalini Ganguly, broadband analyst at Ovum. “The new release of Alcatel-Lucent's ISAM platform addresses the operator constraints and objectives we have noted in our research. Our research further shows that greener access technologies are a critical need for operators, and lower-power products are a critical component of meeting this need.”

“Release-4 of the ISAM platform puts Alcatel-Lucent more than one year ahead of its competitors,” said Dave Geary, President of Alcatel-Lucent's Wireline Networks activities. “The ISAM platform enables our customers to deliver the most bandwidth-intensive services over their copper architectures, by leveraging - for instance - last-mile bonding support, which is a first in ETSI markets. We are confident that our 'more bandwidth with less power' value proposition will again create a big stir in the DSL industry - just as the launch of the ISAM platform five years ago.”

This release supports Alcatel-Lucent's comprehensive eco-sustainability programme that includes using innovation to build smarter, eco-sustainable networks at all layers (access, transport and core) with a framework that addresses hardware, software, network and site innovation.

Alcatel-Lucent's leadership in DSL builds on its award-winning ISAM product family. The ISAM family has now been deployed at more than 210 customers worldwide. Since its launch five years ago, the ISAM family has been adopted by approximately one customer per week, consolidating Alcatel-Lucent's number one position in IP broadband access.

Editorial background material

* Alcatel-Lucent confirms 1Q'09 broadband access leadership, performing strongly in VDSL and GPON (8 June 2009)
* Guangdong Telecom selects Alcatel-Lucent to deploy first VDSL2 network in China (3 June 2009)
* Alcatel-Lucent confirmed as global IPTV access and middleware market leader (30 Apr 2009)
* Alcatel-Lucent evolves its IP access platform, which is powering advanced triple play services around the world (30 September 2008)
* Alcatel-Lucent extends broadband access portfolio with fiber to the building (FTTB) solution (5 March 2008)