ST. CLOUD, Minn.-Wireless carrier CMS St. Cloud said it will become one of the first operators in the United States to offer customers a choice of Code Division Multiple Access, Time Division Multiple Access and analog wireless service using a network solution from Northern Telecom Inc.
CMS is investing nearly $10 million in Nortel 1900 MHz CDMA digital radio base stations and 800 MHz dual-mode TDMA equipment, said Nortel. CMS already provides analog and TDMA digital cellular at 800 MHz and is expanding its network with an overlay to support CDMA digital service using 1900 MHz spectrum it acquired earlier this year in the F-block auction. St. Cloud’s analog, TDMA and CDMA equipment will be served by a single Nortel DMS-MTX SuperNode digital wireless switching system.
“Serving CDMA, TDMA and analog customers off the same switch and the same network offers the economics we need to maintain and grow our market differentiation,” said Bill Castro, general manager of CMS. “Nortel’s solution allows us to take full advantage of our switching capacity to capture roaming revenues from multiple digital and analog technologies.”
CDMA service will be available to customers beginning in April, said CMS.
