A specially equipped bus is being driven around Iberbanda’s R&D center in Malaga testing mobile Internet access and other services such as voice over IP or video surveillance. The bus is equipped with video cameras, screens, phones and PCs so that visitors can experience this advanced wireless technology.

Iberdanda’s pilot consists of several demonstrations, including Internet navigation, VoIP telephony, videoconference, private networks and video surveillance, all while the bus is moving. This pilot will validate simultaneous use of a WiMAX network by a variety of applications based on the technology capabilities and the assignment of differentiated priorities in the radio interface for the different services.

For the demos Iberbanda’s bus is equipped with WiMAX customer premise equipment (CPE) with WiFi functionality so that multiple devices can be connected in the route. The CPE is connected to a WiMAX base station enabling Internet access at 18 Mb/s download and 3 Mb/s upload speeds. An IP phone, a videoconference system and several cameras for surveillance are also available for the different demos.

For this pilot Alcatel-Lucent is providing the technology and solution, including WiMAX 3.5 GHz base stations providing access to the network core and acting as a metro network hub, a WiMAX access controller enabling connectivity for users, radio aggregation and mobility management, and an Operation and Maintenance Center with a full scope of tools and applications for the network operation and maintenance. For the end-to-end tests performance Alcatel-Lucent will also supply a home agent, DHCP & DNS servers and an AAA server to manage authentication, authorization and registration.

“This year will be our starting point to extend our product and services offering for a market launch. We expect to ensure that our customers have the ability to take full advantage of this state-of-the-art technology,” said Carlos de Castro, Iberbanda Sales Director.

In December 2008, Alcatel-Lucent announced that it was refocusing its WiMAX R&D efforts on the technology’s key market opportunity, enhanced wireless DSL (digital subscriber line), which includes data-centric mobility usage on netbooks and mobile Internet devices as well as residential and nomadic PC use.