Residents in rural areas of the U.S. state of Texas will soon be able to enjoy high speed broadband services on mobile devices thanks to an agreement between Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE, ALU) and West Central Wireless, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Central Texas Telephone Cooperative.

Under the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will enable West Central Wireless to launch new 4G LTE service. In addition, West Central Wireless will open up its core network under a new ‘network hosting’ agreement to offer other regional operators the opportunity to deliver broadband services in underserved rural communities.

West Central Wireless intends to launch its own 4G LTE service in late 2012 providing subscribers with faster speeds and higher quality connections to the Internet via laptops in combination with LTE dongles and home broadband networks. Access via 4G LTE smartphones and tablet devices will be available later.

Deployment of Alcatel-Lucent’s Wireless Packet Core system will enable the high speeds and bandwidth needed to deliver 4G LTE services. Furthermore, opening up part of this ‘packet core network’ will allow West Central Wireless to enable other regional operators to accelerate new services as the agreement eliminates the need for investment in packet core networks of their own. They need only to develop a radio access network using Alcatel-Lucent’s LTE base stations to provide coverage to customers. This will help reduce the costs associated with deploying a full LTE network and provide new revenue streams created by the delivery of these services.

Mike Higgins, Jr., CEO of Central Texas Telephone Cooperative, said, “West Central Wireless is a trusted provider of hosted services, having offered similar agreements for AMPS, TDMA, CDMA and GSM technologies. We are pleased to be able to leverage Alcatel-Lucent’s expertise to deliver new services that meet the mobile broadband needs of our customers, while offering a significant opportunity for other service providers who don’t have the capital to invest in a full core network, to do the same.”

Robert Vrij, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Americas Region and head of Global Strategic Alliances, said, “As a leading provider of mobile broadband networks, Alcatel-Lucent is ideally suited to help West Central Wireless evolve its network to 4G LTE and to expand the availability of mobile broadband to customers throughout rural Texas. This agreement further demonstrates Alcatel-Lucent’s ability to provide flexible solutions that meet operators’ unique business needs and help them creatively expand their businesses.”