Siemens and NEC announced a joint venture to develop infrastructure equipment for third-generation systems. The joint venture, in which Siemens will hold 51 percent and NEC will hold 49 percent, is called Mobisphere Ltd. The Reading, United Kingdom-based venture will conduct research and development in UMTS infrastructure, said the companies. The companies will continue to separately develop and market terminals.
Australia’s One.Tel Ltd. and Lucent Technologies announced a strategic alliance to pursue business opportunities in 3G mobile networks in the United Kingdom and Western Europe. Under a memorandum of understanding, One.Tel and Lucent will collaborate in countries where 3G spectrum becomes available and work together to build 3G mobile networks. The companies are working together on a GSM 1800 wireless network in Australia.
Telecom Italia Mobile said Europe’s first urban call using a UMTS third-generation network was made in Italy. The call was made 16 November from the center of Turin to the UMTS center in Telecom Italia’s research center, said the company. The test used equipment supplied by Ericsson.
Qualcomm said it completed the world’s first over-the-air phone calls compliant with the 3G 1X Multicarrier IS-2000 Release O standard. The trial achieved 153 kilobits per second on both the forward and reverse links.
Casio and Siemens announced a strategic alliance to jointly develop a line of palmtop PCs based on Microsoft’s Windows CE operating system with multimedia, wireless Internet and mobile phone capabilities. Siemens said the devices will work on current GSM communications networks, with the potential to work on CDMA networks and the various 3G technologies as well. The companies said they will unveil a working prototype in February at CeBIT 2000 in Germany. The two said the first product will be a palmtop PC with wireless e-mail and Internet capabilities, as well as digital music and video functions.
Cegetel said it will work with Nortel to develop 3G UMTS mobile phone technology. The deal is subject to Cegetel’s success in obtaining a UMTS license.
