Sierra Wireless Inc. said it will jointly work with Nokia Corp.’s network division to test its forthcoming High-Speed Downlink Packet Access wireless PC cards. Sierra’s announcement comes shortly after the company said it would use Qualcomm Inc.’s HSDPA chips in the cards.
Nokia and Sierra said they will cooperate to develop and promote an end-to-end HSDPA W-CDMA solution. The companies said they will then jointly market Sierra’s AirCard 850 and AirCard 860 wireless wide area network cards and Nokia’s HSDPA infrastructure equipment and related software to global network operator customers.
“We are very happy to cooperate with Sierra Wireless in our HSDPA development program as they have an established reputation for producing reliable, high-quality wireless data access devices,” said Giuseppe Donagemma, vice president for Nokia’s radio networks business. “The combination of Nokia’s HSDPA Radio Access Network and Sierra Wireless AirCard wireless network cards offers network operators a package they can roll out seamlessly, and we are pleased to work with Sierra Wireless to provide this alternative to our operator customers worldwide.”
Sierra recently dropped its first-quarter outlook and announced it abandoned plans to sell W-CDMA PC cards in favor of HSDPA cards.
In other PC card news, Novatel Wireless Inc. released its new Novatel Wireless Expedite EV620 EV-DO PCI Express Mini Card for EV-DO networks. The company said the card will be for sale to laptop manufacturers to embed inside laptop computers. The move is notable because some laptop computers currently embed Wi-Fi connectivity.
“The addition of the Expedite EV620 will further diversify our product portfolio, expand our addressable market and put us in a strong position to capitalize on the development of embedded wireless broadband data solutions,” said Peter Leparulo, chief executive officer for Novatel Wireless. “The PCI Express Mini Card form factor makes the Expedite EV620 a perfect turnkey solution for large volume device integration and meets the demand for seamless broadband connectivity.”
During its fourth-quarter conference call, Sierra executives said the company was in talks with a “tier-one” laptop manufacturer for a similar embedded modem.
