nice win
Verizon Wireless Selects Nortel Networks for US$500 Million Network Buildout
Wireless, Optical Investment Paves Way for Expanded Capacity and Coverage
to Meet Strong Customer Demand
NEW YORK, April 12 /PRNewswire/ - Moving quickly to fulfill the bold promise of its new national brand, Verizon Wireless today announced it signed a letter of intent to purchase an estimated US$500 million in wireless and optical equipment from Nortel Networks (NYSE/TSE: NT). This planned agreement is expected to provide significant savings to Verizon Wireless' network infrastructure costs.
Nortel Networks and Verizon Wireless expect to enter into a two-year agreement that will enable Verizon Wireless to increase capacity and coverage in key markets and offer high-capacity, cost-effective and reliable wireless services to its customers nationwide. The agreement also is expected to include optical transport and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switches for major metropolitan markets, and additional equipment for expansion of an existing microwave backbone network.
Last week, Verizon Wireless announced one of the wireless industry's largest planned capital investments. By the end of 2000, the company will invest more than US$3 billion in its nationwide network to further expand its digital footprint and increase capacity for wireless voice and data services. This investment will involve the properties of GTE Wireless (based on the close of the Bell Atlantic and GTE Corporation merger).
"Continued investment in our CDMA network will enable Verizon Wireless to efficiently and cost-effectively expand its CDMA network to support today's subscriber growth and meet future growth forecasts," said Richard Lynch, executive vice president and chief technical officer of Verizon Wireless. "CDMA has proven itself as the best, most efficient digital service in the industry. Plus CDMA technology offers a clear and cost-effective path to 3G products and services, and Nortel Networks is a key partner in deploying these solutions nationwide."
"Our paramount objective is to drive down the cost of building and operating wireless networks," said Anil Khatod, president, Internet Business Solutions, Nortel Networks. "By combining packet, IP, wideband digital radio and optical backbone technologies, we're delivering a new era of network economics."
"We expect not only to drive down costs, but also to bridge the gap between wireless and wireline, bringing people and content together instantaneously with a new, high-performance Internet," Khatod said. "By showing the foresight to explore and evolve to this architecture - in particular, by pairing wireless and optical technologies - Verizon Wireless is staking claim to first-mover advantage in delivering lower costs and advanced new services to its customers."
Verizon Wireless and other operators plan to use new high-speed, highly reliable Wireless Internet services to capitalize on an anticipated explosion in demand for wireless data. The Yankee Group, a leading industry research firm, expects the U.S. wireless data market to grow from US$1.8 billion last year to US$13.2 billion by 2003, with as many as 25 million wireless data users nationwide by 2002.
Already preparing to conduct trials in Dallas of a packet-based, all-IP (Internet Protocol) wireless network architecture, the companies are also planning a second trial -- to begin in August 2000 at a location to be determined -- using third generation (3G) cdma2000 digital radio technology.
The first phase of cdma2000 technology -- called 1XRTT -- is designed to double voice capacity and support data transmission speeds up to 144 kilobits per second, or 10 times the speed commonly available today. cdma2000 is ultimately expected to offer speeds up to 384 kbps for mobile and two megabits per second for stationary applications.
Verizon Wireless is the largest wireless communications provider in the US with over 16 million wireless voice and data customers and nearly four million paging customers. The new, coast-to-coast wireless provider was formed by the combination of the US wireless businesses of Bell Atlantic Corp. and Vodafone AirTouch Plc. The new company includes the assets from Bell Atlantic Mobile, AirTouch Cellular, PrimeCo Personal Communications and AirTouch Paging. Verizon Wireless will be further strengthened by the addition of the US wireless assets of GTE Corp. when it completes its merger with Bell Atlantic. When the merger is complete, the new company will have a footprint covering nearly 90 percent of the US population, 49 of the top 50 and 96 of the top 100 US markets. Verizon Wireless, headquartered in New York City and Bedminster, NJ, is 30,000 employees strong. Visit the company at www.verizonwireless.com. |
