| Alcatel-Lucent Korea President Yoo Chi-il speaks during a press conference at the COEX Intercontinental Hotel in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, Friday. The Paris-based network company said it is confident in a bid for the government's public safety network project. / Courtesy of Alcatel-Lucent Korea |
By Yoon Sung-won
Alcatel-Lucent Korea, the Seoul branch of the global network equipment maker, said Friday that it is fully prepared for participating in a national project to establish a public safety communication network.
"The emergency safety network project is our top business priority this year," said Alcatel-Lucent Korea President Yoon Chi-il during a press conference at the COEX Intercontinental Hotel in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, Friday.
"Alcatel-Lucent has provided wired and wireless network systems for Korea's telecom operators, conglomerates, armed forces and public agencies. This made us understand the requirements for the nation's emergency safety network better than any other operators."
The company said it has participated in network establishment projects in more than 40 countries including England, Germany, France and the United States with its commercial end-to-end network solution consists of LTE network equipments and public safety applications.
Added to its technological backbone supported by the Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent's affiliate research agency, the company said it is confident in the bid for the nation's public safety network project.
Yoo stressed that Alcatel-Lucent's system solution is tailor-made for Korea's public safety network for three reasons ― its network equipments run on the 700-megahertz frequency range which the Korean government decided to allocate for the public safety network; it has embraced Korean partners in the global consortium; and its network equipments are already being used in the nation's public networks.
Alongside Samsung Electronics, the Paris-based company is considered as one of the leading bidders for the Korean government's project to build the public safety long-term evolution (PS-LTE) network.
Korean government has faced rising public requests to establish a public safety network system to effectively deal with national emergencies and disasters after a series of incidents last year, including the ill-fated sinking of the ferry Sewol that claimed more than 300 lives.
In response, the government promised to invest more than 2 trillion won the nationwide PS-LTE network by 2017. As the project is expected to bring additional profits to the network operators due to maintenance operations, global network equipment manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei as well as Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung Electronics are bidding for the deal.
During the event, Alcatel Lucent demonstrated its end-to-end PS-LTE network solution including mobile and core network systems that can transfer video and audio information of an emergency site and supports seamless multilateral communications.
"A successful PS-LTE is determined by the entire network design that ensures minimum capital and operating expenditures," said Jung Sang-gu, Alcatel-Lucent Korea's wireless solutions division chief. "We have considered synchronization between the national emergency network and other public networks that run over the same frequency range, such as railroad and maritime networks, to suggest stable network operation and linkage plan."
The company also said it has arranged a consortium called "ngConnect" with partner companies at home and abroad for the PS-LTE network. Under the consortium, over 225 enterprises including Korean small- and medium-sized businesses are co-developing business models, services and products, the company said.
"This is a major national project and we believe cooperation with local partners is essential," an Alcatel-Lucent Korea spokeswoman said. "We are open to work with both large and small companies and willing to suggest them to do work with us in the global consortium."