Alcatel-Lucent adds another first as it drives broad range of 5G industry development programs toward its Network 2020 vision

- New breakthroughs in the 5G research and development promise network ready to meet demands of the connected world

PARIS, Aug. 3, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) has completed another industry leading step on the path to delivering 5G networks. As announced today, the 5GNOW project, with technical leadership by Alcatel-Lucent, has been awarded the highest scientific excellence honor by the European Commission for advancing development of the next generation of mobile networks (5G) and strengthening European competitiveness. The project, initiated in 2012, was completed this month and delivered a big step toward achieving 5G networks.

In just a few years mobile networks are expected to support billions of different devices and types of data traffic. Today's networks can support applications such as video and file downloads, however they were not designed with the flexibility to also support the expected myriad new applications. 5G networks must be designed to flexibly support this video traffic while also supporting the continuing growth of smartphone and tablet traffic, low-end sensor devices, smart wearables, connected cars, and the connection of industrial robots across wide geographical areas. New innovations, such as those pioneered by Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs in the 5GNOW project, will allow new communications to support the wide variety of application demanded.

The 5GNOW program has identified recommendations for how we can increase the number of devices that are connected to the network by 100 times over what we can support today and for how we can make the network react 50 times more quickly. This will enable smart cities, smart manufacturing, and Internet-of Things-enabled environments to have wireless enabled sensors that can all connect to the network in real time without having to schedule the delivery of their traffic. The main results of the project will be presented at the forthcoming 3GPP 5G workshop in September and will be implemented and expanded through the Fantastic-5G project which aims to establish a broader ecosystem and accelerate commercialization.