G-WCDMA to unite WCDMA and CDMA2000 1x.
Nokia to add another flavor to 3G world
Reuters, 12.03.02, 7:29 PM ET
DALLAS (Reuters) - Finland's Nokia said Tuesday it will offer a new wireless network technology by 2004, initially for the U.S. market, but designed eventually to unite the new generation of mobile network standards globally.
Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker and among the world's largest mobile network systems manufacturers, said it is proposing what it calls the Global Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (G-WCDMA) for a new radio airwave spectrum that will be auctioned in the United States around mid-2004.
"The auction may happen by mid-2004 and G-WCDMA will be ready in perfect timing with that," Jukka Bergqvist, head of Nokia's mobile networks unit, told an analysts conference here.
Standardization of the technology is "about ready" and more announcements will be made early next year, Bergqvist said.
He said the new G-WCDMA could unite the existing and competing wireless broadband network standards WCDMA and CDMA2000 1x.
The Chinese government is pushing local equipment makers in the world's biggest wireless market, with help from Siemens AG , Europe's largest electronics supplier, to create an alternative standard to WCDMA and CDMA2000 known as TD-SCDMA.
All of these so-called third generation (3G) wireless technologies are designed to make mobile voice calls cheaper and mobile data traffic such as pictures and e-mails faster by using the radio spectrum more efficiently.
Copyright 2002, Reuters News Service |
