tockholm, Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Ericsson AB, the world's largest maker of equipment for cellular networks, said it signed a seven-year contract to supply network infrastructure to Sprint Corp., the third-largest U.S. long-distance company.
The so-called master purchase agreement includes radio base stations and other equipment for Sprint's U.S. network based on code-division multiple access, or CDMA, a technology developed by California-based Qualcomm Inc.
Ericsson agreed to buy Qualcomm's unprofitable network-gear unit in March. It's now taking on Lucent Technologies Inc., the world's top phone-equipment maker, and other rivals in the U.S. with equipment based on CDMA, the second-most popular cellular standard after GSM, or global system for mobile communication.
''Particularly our base stations, which are small and compact compared with those of our rivals, appeal to Sprint,'' Ericsson spokesman Johan Wiklund told the newswire Direkt.
Sprint will add Ericsson to its list of suppliers to its CDMA network, though the U.S. company has yet to place orders. Sprint has started testing Ericsson's equipment in its labs.
The agreement is one of the first contracts based on the new Interoperability Specification, or IOS, standard for CDMA, allowing equipment from different suppliers in one network.
Ericsson shares rose 4.5 kronor, or 1.1 percent, to 417. |
