Lucent Launches Smaller CDMA Base Station

Lucent Technologies has introduced a new compact, cost-effective base station to enhance its portfolio of CDMA2000 base stations. China Unicom is one of the first customers to receive shipments of the Flexent Modular Cell 4.0 Compact, a high capacity base station with a small footprint and the newest addition to Lucent's Bell Labs-developed OneBTS family of base stations. China Unicom is deploying the new base station as part of its phase III expansion, in which Lucent is supplying CDMA2000 equipment to increase the coverage and capacity of the operator's network in six provinces.

The 4.0 Compact is an ideal solution for mobile operators with networks that require a base station that takes up less real estate or physical space. Its size and flexibility make it suitable for urban environments, and it can be scaled down to fill in network coverage gaps, increase capacity in high-traffic areas such as airports or sports arenas, extend coverage inside buildings, or provide service in less-populated regions.

"This product is designed to meet a variety of customer needs, and the capacity it provides in about a four-foot tall frame is particularly attractive to mobile operators," said Mary Chan, vice president of research and development for Lucent's Mobility Solutions Group. "The 4.0 Compact also offers our customers significant time-to-market advantages and operational savings because many of its components -- including radios, amplifiers and more -- are common to other base stations in Lucent's portfolio."

The 4.0 Compact works in a wide variety of environments. It can be deployed in a closet, basement or rooftop. It also can work with distributed antenna systems (DAS), which are frequently used when wireless systems are deployed in a building, and can support passive (rely on power from the base station) or active (self-powered) DAS systems. The 4.0 Compact's high carrier density - the amount of capacity or voice or data calls that can be supported in a product "footprint" - is the result of one of the many technical and design achievements implemented by Bell Labs researchers and developers. The product also supports multiple power configurations and spectrum bands.

The 4.0 Compact is available in both indoor and outdoor versions and can support cdmaOne and CDMA2000 1X voice and data in 1900 and 850 MHz spectrum. It also will support CDMA2000 1xEV-DO in the future. With minimal modifications, it also can be built to support other radio frequencies at a customer's request."

Posted to the site on 31st October 2003