Lucent, Qualcomm complete cdma2000 1xEV test

(Telephony) When Lucent Technologies and Qualcomm announced their partnership about six months ago, they had one goal: to demonstrate a smooth evolution to third-generation services delivered via code division multiple access equipment. Now that they have successfully completed a live data call, they are sure that cdma2000 1xEV will allow mobile operators to offer data transmission rates of 2.4 Mbps using existing spectrum and network infrastructure equipment.

“This signifies that our relationship with Qualcomm is moving forward and that Lucent is committed to bringing 1xEV to the market,” said Ed Chao, senior manager of CDMA product management at Lucent Technologies. “We have gone from PowerPoint presentations to integrating the technology into our base-station platform.”

Completing these tests sets the stage for Lucent to engage in field trials of the technology with customers such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS by spring, Chao said.

“We think this is revolutionary technology because of its increased capacity. There is a significant increase over other 3G technologies,” he said. “Plus, it gets us up the IP learning curve, because the tests were based on an all-IP architecture.”

In addition, by using existing spectrum, carriers might not have to worry so much about spending large sums of money at spectrum auctions.

Lucent and Qualcomm completed the tests over a link in the 1.9 GHz spectrum using Lucent's Flexent wireless network equipment. The technology tested applications such as Web browsing, streaming video and e-mail via data transmission speeds of up to 2.4 Mbps. Lucent plans to integrate the 1xEV technology into its equipment with commercial availability in early 2002.