Alcatel-Lucent has launched its ng Connect programme, a multi-industry initiative aimed at bringing the benefits of seamless broadband to cars, phones, computers and gaming systems. The Program, whose initial members include HP, Samsung, Buzznet, QNX and others, aims to set up a range of infrastructure, devices, content and applications for fixed and mobile broadband networks including 4G, LTE, GPON and other ultra high bandwidth technologies.
Tom Krause, chief marketing officer at Alcatel-Lucent thinks the approach will accelerate the development of services to be run over these networks. "As we move into the next phase of the evolution of broadband networks with the advent of ultra high bandwidth systems, it is critical that a broad spectrum of companies – including those from industries that are not normally associated – come together in a strong ecosystem that can effectively innovate, remove business and technical barriers and define new business models," he said. "The ng Connect programme is an important step in our strategy to create an open ecosystem so that the trusted capabilities of service providers can be combined with the innovation of the web to bring whole new classes of services to market."
The programme has three immediate goals which are to accelerate deployment of new services through pre-integration, identify and prmote new revenue streams and to broaden the wireless broadband device landscape to include consumer electronics, industrial equipment and automotive connectivity.
A lot of the activity will centre around machine to machine communications and one example of the possible applications resulting from the programme is in the automotive sector. Dan Dodge, CEO of QNX Software Systems, explains how ng will work. "QNX is excited about what LTE can bring to the next-generation connected vehicle. A reliable high-speed connection transforms the user experience: no more hard drive in the car, no more out-of-date navigation and mapping system, and no more visits to the dealer to update your software," he says. "The car becomes an Internet terminal, an edge device, providing users with real-time access to the latest applications, data, and content. LTE complements our own vision of enabling cars that dynamically connect to the Internet cloud, to consumer devices, and to one another."