CMO says sees bright future on WCMDA/ HSDPA too
Sky Link, the operator established to develop a nationwide CDMA450 network in Russia, and Lucent Technologies today announced that Lucent has been selected as a supplier for 10 new regions in Russia. By summer 2006, Sky Link plans to expand the coverage of its Lucent-supplied CDMA2000 1XEV-DO network — which supports mobile data services at speeds of up to 2.4 Mbps – to the Belgorod, Volgograd, Vologda, Vladimir, Kursk, Lipetsk, and Tver regions, Krasnodar and Altai territories, and in the North Ossetia-Alania Republic.
The 1xEV-DO expansion follows Sky Link’s launch of EV-DO services at 450MHz in Moscow and St Petersburg, focussing on enterprise and mobile data usage.
John Giere, chief marketing officer of Lucent, told Mobile Europe that 450MHz was an excellent bandwidth for urban as well as rural high speed data services.
Responding to the suggestion that 450MHz was better suited to rural networks, because of its greater scope, he said, “That’s a story that’s been very well honed by the GSM community. In fact it is very suitable gor urban rural applications – it deosn’t matter. Sky Link is operating in high density urban areas and this is their preferred route.
He also described device availability for 1xEV-DO at 450MHz as “quite good, pointing our that it is a frequency with great interest in Asia and in China epecially.
As for further European opportunities at 450MHz, Giere said that he did not see any inclination on behalf of regulaators to come up with a coherent strategy at a pan European level.
But he added that Lucent still held out hopes for its 3GPP evolution strategy bearing fruit in Europe. “We’re working with a lot of operators, and have the contract with O2 for Manx Telecom’s HSDPA service. We’ve also announced our flat IP radio architecture, and believe that presents a compelling value proposition. Sure the incumbent [vendors] are tought competitors but every indication we have is that progress is being made and we are expecting godd results.”
Sky Link is also planning a migration to the CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A, which enables users to receive data (forward link) at speeds of theoreticallyup to 3.1 Mbps and send data (reverse link) at speeds of theoretically up to 1.8 Mbps, giving it roughly the same capability as HSUPA in the 3GPP
For the project, Lucent is supplying its CDMA2000 solution for the 450MHz frequency band, including its Mobile Switching Center (MSC), new Modular Cell 4.0 Compact base stations and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Radio Network Controller (RNC). Lucent Worldwide Services will provide network deployment, training and support services.