Infrastructure vendor Siemens AG and PC card maker Novatel Wireless Inc. announced they jointly will sell High-Speed Downlink Packet Access products. Siemens will supply the HSDPA infrastructure gear, and Novatel will offer compatible PC cards as a “preferred partner.”
“To ensure the economic success of HSDPA, it is absolutely essential that the high-speed devices are commercially available at the same time as the infrastructure is installed,” said Christoph Caselitz, president of the Mobile Networks business within Siemens’ Communications division. “The portfolio of devices may include PC cards, embedded modules for notebooks and convergence solutions. Two of the leading suppliers in the HSDPA sector, Siemens and Novatel Wireless are now pooling their strengths to provide wireless carriers with a tested end-to-end-solution for HSDPA.”
The move is an acknowledgement that Siemens recently shed its handset business; the company is in the process of offloading it to Taiwanese electronics company BenQ Corp. Since Siemens no longer has wireless terminals to sell along with its infrastructure equipment, it must sign agreements with vendors like Novatel.
Companies like Motorola Inc. and Nokia Corp. promote their offerings as end-to-end solutions because they sell both infrastructure and handsets. However, companies like Lucent Technologies Inc. exist solely as infrastructure vendors. Further, L.M. Ericsson and Alcatel Corp. previously have sold their handset businesses to focus on infrastructure sales.
