ng Connect Program has announced joining of 11 new members, bringing membership to 47 companies since the start of the program. ng Connect is the ecosystem for the creation of next-generation fixed and mobile broadband services based on LTE and other high bandwidth technologies.

The new members 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. New members are Atrato, BlogRadio, Intelligent Mechatronic Systems, IVOX, Netsweeper, Nuance Communications, Skymeter Corporation, STRATACACHE, Telepresence Tech, VisionMAX and Wcities.com.

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. 

"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.

At the recent ng Connect Program member meeting, members were hosted at both Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung Telecommunications America in the Dallas, Texas area. 

"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," said Tom Jasny, Vice President of Wireless and Broadband Networks for Samsung Telecommunications America.