Eleven new members have joined the ng Connect Program, founded by Alcatel-Lucent, more than tripling membership in 18 months. The new members bring expertise from a range of sectors, including machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, advertising, retail, internet security, media, entertainment, text-to-speech, and mobile voice technology. With a total of 47 members, ng Connect continues its cross-industry efforts to collaboratively develop new services, devices and business models for emerging LTE networks.

The ng Connect Program, founded by Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), today announced 11 new members have joined the global initiative bringing membership to 47 companies since the start of the program – more than tripling membership in only 18 months. ng Connect is the telecom industry’s leading ecosystem for the creation of next-generation fixed and mobile broadband services based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) and other high bandwidth technologies. The new members announced today bring expertise in a wide range of categories including Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, advertising, retail, internet security, media, entertainment, text-to-speech, and mobile voice technology.

With leading service providers ramping up to launch LTE networks in multiple North American markets this year, interest in the ng Connect Program’s unique, cross-industry efforts to collaboratively develop new services, devices and business models for these emerging networks continues to increase significantly. In an August 2010 survey, the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) reported a 71 percent increase in LTE commitments worldwide since a similar survey conducted six months earlier. This trend supports the program’s mission to develop new services and devices for these networks and provides substantial business opportunities for program members.

“We’ve just conducted our most recent ng Connect Program member meeting where members from around the world were represented and the excitement about the capabilities and opportunities presented by 4G and LTE networks was intense,” said Steve West, Vice President of Emerging Technology & Media at Alcatel-Lucent. “In addition to the showcase demos that the program members have delivered, our membership sees tremendous opportunities for program expansion into high growth areas such as telematics, retail and media where smart, high capacity networks will drive a new era of innovation.”

At the recent ng Connect Program member meeting, members were hosted at both Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung Telecommunications America in the Dallas, Texas area. They toured Alcatel-Lucent’s research facility, reviewed the offerings of fellow member companies and participated in two days of in-depth discussions and demonstrations. Future 4G/LTE solution concepts were agreed upon in the areas of M2M communications, digital signage and telepresence to address challenges in the transportation and retail sectors as well as many others.

“Samsung strives to help people stay connected, informed and entertained in all aspects of their lives. We strongly identify with the mission of the ng Connect Program to accelerate the development and availability of devices, services and solutions that will lead to a richer user experience. As an original member of ng Connect, we see our goals supported by the collaboration and innovation efforts this program delivers," said Tom Jasny, Vice President of Wireless and Broadband Networks for Samsung Telecommunications America. “More than 50 representatives from 22 member companies gathered in Dallas in September 2010 to showcase their own solutions to one another and participate in highly interactive and engaging ideation sessions. The ideas generated from that summit will help produce the next set of Solution Concepts designed to take advantage of the high performance 4G/LTE networks launching across the U.S. this year.”

The new ng Connect Program members include:

Atrato, Inc. – a storage innovator specializing in high performance, autonomic tiered storage solutions. The company will collaborate with other ng Connect members to improve storage management and performance for a variety of data-intensive applications including virtual hosting, business analytics, entertainment services, and digital content distribution.

BlogRadio – an innovative mobile media services developer. The company will initially contribute its text-to-speech and streaming media expertise to create an ng Connect Program solution concept to turn written materials into cloud-based audio and video streams available anywhere, anytime.

Intelligent Mechatronic Systems Inc. (IMS) – the leader in developing and delivering advanced in-vehicle solutions. IMS will lend its expertise in the areas of in-vehicle, voice-interactive services and turn-key, end-to-end telematics solutions.

IVOX – an information services provider of predictive, driver-based information for Driver Risk Management. As part of the program, the company will develop a new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Driver Risk Management solution, built on IVOX’s DriverScore® platform.

Netsweeper, Inc. – a leading provider of Internet content filtering and web threat management solutions and services. The company will contribute its expertise to the program through collaboration with members on security solutions.

Nuance Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUAN) – a leader in mobile voice technology supplying solutions to the world’s leading automotive manufacturers, Tier One suppliers and third-party platforms. The company will initially focus its collaboration efforts on next-generation automotive services with plans to extend its focus to solution concepts for the broad range of vertical industries the company serves including healthcare, financial, government and education.

Skymeter Corporation – a leader in financial-grade GPS (FGPS) applications. The company will collaborate with program members on solutions for enhanced billing delivery, congestion management, and the payment functions of the next generation of services for tolling, parking and pay-as-you-go insurance.

STRATACACHE – a provider of scalable and cost-effective digital signage, IP video, content distribution and enterprise video acceleration solutions. STRATACACHE will contribute its expertise to the program in order to create efficient, scalable and cost-effective enterprise applications.

Telepresence Tech, LLC., - a provider of advanced telepresence solutions. As part of the program, the company will collaborate on “TelePresence-Marketing” solutions that will allow enterprises to communicate with customers over IP networks with life size images of participants and direct eye contact enabled by a patented display system supporting natural two-way conversations as they appear to be three dimensionally present.

VisionMAX – a multi-platform custom applications and business system integrator. VisionMAX will contribute innovative and proven systems integration capabilities through its VisionEngine platform including: multi-channel retail point of sale, integrated back-office and supply chain management, wireless service activation, 3-screen integrated IP video, and cloud computing application services. Initial ng Connect applications will focus on the retail, media, and entertainment industries.

Wcities.com – a travel and entertainment content publisher and developer of the world’s premier database of authoritative travel content. As part of the ng Connect Program, Wcities is fully committed to the integration of our location-based services within the program framework in order to facilitate discovery of relevant events, movies, points of interest wherever you might be.

About The ng Connect Program

The ng Connect Program is a multi-industry organization committed to the development and rapid deployment of the next generation of broadband services based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) and other ultra high bandwidth technologies. Founded in 2009, the ng Connect Program is supported by leading network, consumer electronics, application and content providers including 4DK, Alcatel-Lucent, Atlantic Records, Atrato, BlogRadio, BUZZMEDIA, chumby, Connect2Media, CoolSign, Creative Technology Ltd., Desktone, EON Reality, FISHLABS, GameStreamer, Inc., Gemalto, HP, IMS, Intamac Systems Ltd., IVOX, K12, Inc., Kabillion, Kyocera Communications Inc., LearningMate, LiveCast, MediaTile, Mobideo, Movial, NCR Corporation, Netsweeper, Nuance Communications, Optical Crime Prevention, Inc., QNX, R360, RebelVox LLC., Samsung, SIGNEXX, Skymeter Corporation, STRATACACHE, Telepresence Tech, Total Immersion, Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc., TuneWiki, V-Gate, Vidyo, Visionmax Solutions Inc., Wcities.com, and Words & Numbers. For more information on the ng Connect Program, please visit: www.ngconnect.org. Follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/ngConnect.