Filter Bank Multicarrier (FBMC) based systems has gained popularity as a better alternative to OFDM among next generation wired and wireless multicarrier communication systems. The conventional prototype Alter design problems were concentrated on designing Alters that are isotropic and with better frequency response characteristics to reduce the out of band radiation. Time domain side lobes of the prototype Alter become significant under doubly dispersive channels with higher time spreading since it reduces signal to interference ratio as well as increases peak to average power ratio. In the present study, a novel time localized prototype Alter for FBMC systems is designed. The proposed Optimized Generalized Gaussian Pulse (OGGP) Alter is analyzed and compared with the conventional Alters using contour plots of ambiguity function, time and frequency domain sidelobes, tail energy etc. The proposed Alter has lower side lobes and faster decay in the time domain compared to the other existing filters. © 2014 IEEE.