Hitachi Communication Technologies and Alvarion to Cooperate in Developing Mobile WiMAX System

(Top News, 8 Aug 2007)

Hitachi Communication Technologies Ltd and Alvarion Ltd have agreed to develop Broadband Mobile Wireless Access System using Mobile WiMAX technology jointly in Japan and overseas market.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has developed the license policy of 2.5GHz band. WiMAX is considered as the most likely candidate for Broadband Mobile Wireless Access Systems. To establish WiMAX technology, the base station, which can transmit broadband data stably, and the mobile management technology, which can realize seamless handover between base stations, are needed.

The main goal of this agreement is that Hitachi Com and Alvarion will develop total system solutions, combined with the base station technology of Alvarion, with the mobile gateway technology, construction and maintenance technology of Hitachi Com.

Hitachi Com is in charge of developing ASN-GW, which has the following features:

1. The common platform architecture is applied from a small system to very large systems so that it can flexibly be expanded along by the future traffic increase through separating protocol processor from traffic processor.

2. It has a non-stop configuration to realize the quality of carrier grade so that it can switch to the redundant system without giving any impact to other equipment such as base stations and mobile stations through mirroring of operation information and instantaneous transfer of IP addresses.

3. It has extremely high-speed packet processing performance through the use of high performance ASN-GW engine of which capability is expected to be 10 times or more when compared with Hitachi Com's current products.

Alvarion is in charge of developing high performance macro/micro base stations, which have the following features.

1. The realization of the reduction in size and weight by function aggregation. (unified RF parts and digital processing parts, 30 percent less power consumption and 50 percent less mass), Reduction of installation work cost.

2. It is compatible with AAS and MIMO which are key features in the WiMAX Forum Wave 2 specifications. As a result of combining MIMO and AAS together, effective cell design can be accomplished easier and both area coverage and system capacity increase.

3. The realization of low power consumption in the RF portion with the advanced technologies such as DPD and CFR.

Through the experiences of Hitachi Com, which has the fast hand over and mobile management technologies proven in the 3G mobile communication market, and Alvarion, which has the wireless broadband technology from OFDMA down acquired in the fixed WiMAX with high market shares in the world, they can realized new WiMAX system which has the quality of career grade still maintaining WiFi-like easy deployment capability.

WiMAX is a broadband wireless standard which is based on the specifications 802.16 working group in IEEE formulates. Its strong points are faster speed service at a lower price when compared with 3rd generation. WiMAX Forum, an industry group, formulates the specifications of the higher layer and authenticates equipment. Also, Alvarion is playing a leading role from the early stage in WiMAX Forum and contributes substantially by volunteering to be a chairman today in the most important Working Group.

Hitachi Com will aim for further global expansion in the next generation broadband wireless business through this scheme.

Hitachi Communication Technologies
Alvarion