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Another Blow to CDMA
By Mark Evans | October 11, 2008
This does not come as a surprise but Bell and Telus, which operate CDMA wireless networks in Canada, are going to jointly spend $1-billion to do a network overlay using GSM and HSDPA technology.
Over the years, Bell and Nortel have been die-hard Nortel customers but with Nortel out of the GSM game, Bell and Telus will use Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei Technology.
The move by Bell and Telus was seen as inevitable so they could compete with Rogers Wireless, which operates a GSM network and, as a result, gets earlier access to many of the cool, new wireless devices such as the iPhone and Blackberry.
In a statement, Bell said the investment “also confirms the company’s migration path to the global Fourth Generation (4G) Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard”. You have to wonder if Nortel has a chance to get some of the LTE action or whether it’s not shut out from Bell/Telus.
As someone noted in the comments in an earlier post, Nokia Siemens’s North American president is Sue Spradley, who used to be president of Nortel’s global services and operations unit.
GSM overlays of CDMA networks is becoming increasingly common. The only market where CDMA really shines is China. (Addendum: CDMA is pretty popular in the U.S. and Korea).
Technorati Tags: cdma, wireless
Topics: Wireless |