Today Alcatel- Lucent announced the release of a new line of cellular hardware named lightRadio that the company promises will reduce the operational costs for cellular networks and double their data throughput capacity.

Highlights of this exciting new cellular system reduces are:

• Reduced energy consumption by as much as 50%
• Reduced maintenance costs by eliminating cell tower base stations
• Smaller cell towers – less equipment means a smaller cell tower footprint
• More coverage – cheaper cell towers means more cell towers in more areas

These new advancements will help to grow the smartphone market by increasing coverage areas and reducing the costs of data plans.

For more information:

• Evolve your wireless broadband network for the new generation of applications and users – Alcatel Lucent blog
• lightRadio: hideous cell towers to get smaller, lose the “hut” – ars technica blog