First W-CDMA 900 MHz calls

January 25, 2006

Nortel, QUALCOMM and Orange have successfully completed UMTS and HSDPA calls in the 900 MHz band, a spectrum capable of delivering wireless broadband such as mobile TV, video-on-demand, video telephony and DSL-like services to rural areas.

W-CDMA (UMTS) in the 900 MHz band is a cost effective way to deliver nationwide high-speed wireless coverage. It achieves a 60 percent reduction in cell sites required to serve rural areas and delivers improved Quality of Service in urban areas by enhancing in-building penetration by 25 percent.

The category 6 HSDPA calls, using the 16 QAM Modulation and reaching 3.6Mbps data rate, were completed using Nortel's commercial infrastructure technologies, mobile handsets based on QUALCOMM's Mobile Station Modem MSM6280 chipset solution and Orange's 900 MHz spectrum.

"UMTS in the 900 MHz band is a complementary solution to existing 3G services that will enable Orange to provide high speed wireless Internet to both rural and urban areas of France, thereby enabling us to deliver a true nationwide UMTS/HSDPA service," said Vivek Badrinath, executive vice president, products, technology and innovation, Orange Group.

Nortel's innovations in spectral efficiency are the key enablers to liberate spectrum in the 900 MHz band, providing wireless operators with the capability to deploy W-CDMA in that band. The implementation of UMTS 900 is compatible with widely deployed Node B hardware for simplified integration. QUALCOMM's Mobile Station Modem solutions for HSDPA were the first in the world to be commercially available, and data rates of up to 7.2 Mbps are supported by the company's HSDPA portfolio.

Nortel, Qualcomm and Orange plan to publicly demonstrate this capability during the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February.