Go farther

Nortel Networks announced last week that it has tested a new solution that can extend the range of code division multiple access base stations 10 times over a standard CDMA base station.

"We did it through some software changes made to effectively extend the range of timing parameters," said Dave Murashige, vice president of marketing and product line management for Nortel. At Nortel's Wireless Solutions lab in Ottawa, the new solution extended the range of a Nortel CDMA Metro Cell base station to 200 kilometers. When applied outside the lab in a trial, the range reached more than 95 kilometers.

For now, the solution will be available only for CDMA 800 MHz products, and it may be some time before U.S. operators demand it, Murashige said.

Nortel began work on the extended capability at the request of Australia's Telstra. Australian regulators recently mandated that by 2000, AMPS systems no longer be used. Telstra is interested in using Nortel's new solution to replace the AMPS networks it has in rural areas.

Nortel hasn't tried the technology on 1900 MHz systems, but Murashige said there's no reason it wouldn't work. However, coverage "is not a problem on the top of the list in North America," he said. "From the North American perspective, you see the demand for voice capacity and data services as pretty high." In addition, some of the areas called rural in the U.S. and Canada are more populated than the rural areas of Australia where Telstra will cover, he said.

In the U.S., some rural operators also may perceive GSM to be the lower cost solution. "Rural carriers don't have the resources to investigate technology and look at the long term," said Ira Brodsky, president of Datacom Research. Some operators may choose GSM base stations because they are cheaper, but ultimately CDMA can provide better coverage, Brodsky said, even without enhancements such as Nortel's.