OREANDA-NEWS. Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is helping AIS, Thailand’s leading mobile service provider, to improve cellular services for residents and the country’s substantial tourist economy with the country’s first deployment of small cells technology.

Small cells deliver cellular signals in areas where existing coverage is insufficient or challenged due to interference from buildings, geography or distance from a cell tower. They also add much needed capacity in areas with large concentrations of users.

Alcatel-Lucent’s industry-leading small cells will provide AIS with an efficient and cost effective way to increase coverage and capacity for an improved customer experience – both for voice and high speed data access – by placing the radio technology closer to the users.

Thailand expects to see a steady growth in tourism during 2015. January saw 2.65 million people travel to the country, a year-on-year increase of 15.9 percent. AIS is deploying small cells in popular tourist destinations and shopping malls in Thailand, as well as in urban environments and villages. This will help the service provider expand its data service faster and more economically than with conventional cellular networks, which may be more costly and take considerably more time to install.