Bell Laboratories targets ICT innovations at emerging markets
Bell Labs yesterday announced its focus areas, which include creating novel applications and networking technologies, especially for emerging markets such as Thailand. Headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Bell Laboratories is the research arm of Alc
Dr Viswanath Poosala, executive director and president of Bell Labs India, said the key characteristics of information and communications technology in emerging markets such as Thailand and India were low cost/price, low power/energy consumption, ease of use, diversity of users, and large scale.
The emerging economies are growing towards having a majority market share. It is anticipated that more than 50 per cent of the ICT market’s size will be shared by emerging economies by 2015.
“Bell Labs is focusing on understanding the trends and needs of emerging markets. Our innovations, which have been developed for the emerging markets, will also be key to global markets,” he said.
He said many Thais wanted access to rich content, or interactive media. However, such access on mobile networks is priced out of reach of most users, resulting in a very low uptake. An important reason is that operators do not have the capacity to serve rich media to a large numbers of users, and even with the arrival of third-generation networks, such interactive services will not be feasible at low-price points.
Sebastien Laurent, president and managing director Alcatel-Lucent (Thailand), said the world was experiencing a dramatic shift to the next digital economy, triggered by a new generation of users. There are tremendous needs among Thai broadband subscribers to download and upload large image files and video applications.
The “data storm” is being seen in Thailand now. Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs says it is transferring its technology expertise to help network operators in Thailand cope with the situation. The equipment will be smaller and greener.
HIGH LEVERAGE NETWORK
Jean-Pierre Lartique, vice president for corporate strategy, said Alcatel-Lucent in the past three years had been applying what it calls a High Leverage Network architecture for all Internet protocols (IPs).
“Our strategy is to evolve the High Leverage Network as a platform for enabling innovation in new end-user services. We believe that Thailand has a strong opportunity to move into the next digital economy by fostering mobile and fixed broadband/fibre-to-the-home, or FTTH, penetration with faster IP/optical networks,” he said.
Lartique said Thailand had a unique position in the region as a hub for information, communication and entertainment. The worldwide market is experiencing a major shift with a new generation of users who consider tablet computers as extensions of their lives. The more Thailand has people of the tablet generation, the more it will be competitive in the region and worldwide.
Bell Labs is a global organisation with about 1,500 employees based in Asia, Europe and North America. Of these, about 675 are researchers in eight countries: India, Ireland, Germany, France, Belgium, the United States, South Korea and China. Its research domains include networking, wireless, optics, multimedia and computing.
