SWINDON, U.K.-Lucent Technologies Inc. and Vodafone Group plc announced they made their first third-generation over-the-air trial calls using Lucent’s Global Third Generation Code Division Multiple Access technology at Vodafone’s headquarters in Newbury, England.
“These trials, together with Lucent’s public demonstrations of over-the-air performance up to 1.2 megabits per second and its selection by NTT DoCoMo to provide W-CDMA equipment, reinforces Lucent’s position as a leader in next-generation mobile communications,” said Carlo Baravalle, marketing vice president for Lucent’s Global System for Mobile communications/Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems group.
Lucent deployed its prototype UMTS base station and mobile simulator and will progress to drive tests in the radio trials to gain practical experience of prototype 3G technologies, said the company.
The U.K. government is expected to issue 3G licenses to operators like Vodafone in 2000, which would lead to commercial operation in 2002.
