Press Release 2012
Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs announces discovery of vastly more spectrum for wireless communications
Paris, April 1, 2012 — Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced the discovery of vastly more frequency spectra than previously thought to exist. This discovery promises to effectively solve the so called "spectrum crunch" for the foreseeable future.
The frequency spectrum is the lifeblood of wireless devices, for broadcast Radio, television, as well as the wireless phones and tablets that have become nearly ubiquitous in the past two decades. The electromagnetic spectrum spans frequencies in the thousands of cycles per second range where AM radios work to the tens and hundreds of millions of cycles per second for TV and FM radios, up through the billions of cycles per second that mobile phones use, with radars, WiFi and point to point microwave devices at higher frequencies. But these frequencies are becoming congested with little room to spare for further growth.
There are now more than 5.6 billion mobile phones in the world, with more than a billion in China alone, and nearly that many in India. But smart phones and tablets are using immensely more wireless data than just a few years ago. Bell Laboratories studies have forecasted that wireless data traffic volumes have been more than doubling in the USA since 2007, resulting in forecasts of wireless data demand increasing 25 times over the next 5 years. Sustaining this growth has been a major challenge for the industry, particularly in light of the looming spectrum shortage.
Already in some cities, mobile operators have run out of spectrum. Alcatel-Lucent has spearheaded lightRadio™ which goes a long way toward getting the most out of the existing spectrum, but even so it is only expected to provide a few more years of doublings of growth in demand, this requires additional means of addressing the surging torrent of wireless data.
"We've posed this problem to the smartest people in the field, the scientists and engineers of Bell Labs, and they came through with another great discovery." said Tod Sizem, Bell Labs research VP. Dr. Jim Seemore realized the critical step in this discovery when doing a calculation of frequency translation which included a negative frequency term. This term has been seen and ignored for over a century, but Jim gave it a serious second thought. In the past it was considered a term only when carrier frequencies exceeded the difference frequency, or in abstract math, but, says Jim, "I tried typing in a negative frequency into a spectrum analyzer and low and behold the display was empty, showing that no one was using the negative frequencies." Realizing the potential of this observation, Jim quickly announced the discovery to Alcatel-Lucent's customers.
These negative frequencies, unused as they are, can be can be allocated to wireless communications exclusively, or at least to a greater degree than the historical positive frequency allocations to broadcast services and the like, so that these negative frequencies can more than double the allocations to wireless communications.
Unfortunately, Dr. Soreknee Hilbert has pointed out that there are causality problems with these frequency allocations, as they may enable communications back in time, even before April Fool's Day.
About Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU)
The long-trusted partner of service providers, enterprises and governments around the world, Alcatel-Lucent is a leading innovator in the field of working nets and communicating technology, products and services. The company is home to Bell Labs, one of the world's foremost research centers, responsible for breakthroughs that have shaped the working communications industry. Alcatel-Lucent was named one of MIT Technology Review's 2012 Top 50 list of the "World's Most Innovative Companies" for breakthroughs such as lightRadio™, which cuts operating costs on wireless networks while delivering fast Internet access. Through such innovations, Alcatel-Lucent is making communications more sustainable, more affordable and more accessible as we pursue our mission - Realizing the Potential of a Connected World.
With operations in more than 130 countries and one of the most experienced global services organizations in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The Company achieved revenues of Euro 15.3 billion in 2011 and is incorporated in France and headquartered in Paris.
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