Wednesday, 11 June 2008

Alcatel-Lucent & Telstra Unveil Mobile TV Testing Facility in Australia

Alcatel-Lucent & Telstra Corporation have entered a partnership with the opening of a mobile TV handset testing service centre in Melbourne, Australia.

The first Alcatel-Lucent facility of its kind outside of France, the centre represents a key step forward in bringing mobile TV-ready handsets to market quickly, dramatically reducing delivery time from up to three months to just 15 days.

The facility was developed to support Telstra’s Mobile FOXTEL TV service and will help ensure that Alcatel-Lucent’s MiTV application and the Mobile FOXTEL service are compatible with and operate smoothly on the handsets that Telstra offers to its customers.

Seen as key to ensuring the reliability and availability of new applications, the facility will test up to 100 UMTS 3G-enabled handset models a year including models from the all the major manufacturers to ensure their compatibility and suitability for the network and the anticipated applications and services to be offered. Testing will involve Streamezzo, which supplies a rich media client software application to support Alcatel-Lucent’s MiTV application and Mobile FOXTEL service on the handsets being offered by Telstra.

“Bringing mobile interactive TV to Australians over our next-generation network is one of the exciting new services that we offering our customers and it’s one of our key priorities,” said Jim More, Telstra Executive Director, Network Engineering.

“This latest collaboration with Alcatel-Lucent means we are able to respond to the increasing popularity of Mobile FOXTEL and meet the rising demand for television capable handsets.”

The opening of the centre in Melbourne has meant the establishment of a dedicated local services team run by Alcatel-Lucent to spearhead the terminal introduction process. Previous testing had been done in overseas operational centres, and the move to bring the service to Australia illustrates Telstra’s and Alcatel-Lucent’s commitment to growing Australia’s digital future.

“Alcatel-Lucent recognises that the key to building a sustainable mobile service in Australia is the ability to support Telstra’s unique and specific handset requirements,” said Andrew Butterworth, VP of Alcatel-Lucent Australasian Services Business Group.

“To this end, our mobile TV handset testing process is designed to handle Telstra’s specific end-to-end mobile service requirements.”

This local centre service will give Telstra the flexibility to handle peak handset introduction periods in a much more economical manner. Furthermore, the dedicated team will expedite fault resolution, resulting in a significant additional reduction in time to market. In the future, the centre will also provide testing service for other mobile service providers in the Asia-Pacific region.

“We are very proud of our relationship with Telstra and believe the establishment of an Australian testing and service centre will prove to be a sustainable advantage for Telstra in deploying mobile TV-ready handsets into the market,” added Butterworth.