Alcatel Lucent has launched a new range of network technology products that it claims will revolutionise mobile networks, dispensing with the need for traditional base stations and masts.

Described by the vendor as a “breakthrough in mobile and broadband infrastructure”, the range, dubbed ‘LightRadio’, sees the base station broken into its component parts and distributed through the antenna and a ‘cloud-like’ network, Alcatel Lucent said. It was developed in partnership with Freescale Semiconductor and HP.

“Today’s and tomorrow’s demands for coverage and capacity require a breakthrough in mobile communications,” said CEO Ben Verwaayen. “LightRadio will signal the end of the base station and the cell tower as we know [them] today.”

Key elements of the new offering include:

• An antenna cube measuring just 5cm that Alcatel Lucent said will could improve capacity in urban areas by as much as 30 per cent, across 2G, 3G and LTE technologies;
• A system on a chip architecture developed with Freescale that can move processing power to the antenna or the cloud; and
• Virtualized processing platforms from partners including HP that enable “a cloud-like wireless architecture for controllers and gateways.

Alcatel Lucent made further bold claims for its new technology, asserting that it could shrink both the carbon footprint and the total cost of ownership for mobile networks by 50 per cent or more.