Alcatel-Lucent, Intel Join Forces for Mobile Cloud Acceleration

Alcatel-Lucent and Intel (INTC) unveiled plans to help mobile operators accelerate their journey to the cloud. The two companies already have a strategic partnership in place, but now they have expanded that alliance to collaborate in the virtualization space.

The expanded partnership, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, focuses on three key areas:

• Virtualized radio access networks (RAN), in which the two companies will develop and optimize Alcatel-Lucent’s LTE and LTE-Advanced wireless products to enable operators to use general purpose platforms in configurations that will reduce total cost of ownership and increase their ability to scale networks to meet growing demand for mobile data applications and throughput.
• High-performance packet processing for advanced IP/MPLS platforms and functions, enabling Alcatel-Lucent’s IP development team to better use the features and capabilities of Intel’s architecture to deliver improved performance in virtualized IP/MPLS functions.
• And a cloud platform, which will put the two companies to work developing and optimizing Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand network functions virtualization (NFV) platform. It will also include joint contributions to the open source community, as well as a push to accelerate service provider testing, validation and deployment of NFV technologies.

“In the last year we have seen an acceleration of innovation and industry changes,” said Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, in a prepared statement. “This is nothing compared to what we will see in the next decades, bringing new possibilities to our digital lifestyles. As we outlined in The Shift Plan, it is critical that we lead that change by working with the best and brightest partners who can break down the barriers between IT and networking. In working together with Intel—a world leader in computing technology—Alcatel-Lucent will continue to be positioned at the forefront of innovation as operators rapidly move to the cloud.”

Alcatel-Lucent unveiled its NFV roadmap last week, and much of it revolves around helping mobile operators to “become more efficient, responsive and innovative.” Alcatel-Lucent is talking up its virtualization portfolio this week at Mobile World Congress.

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