Lucent wins CDMA contracts

Lucent Technologies, which posted its 10th straight quarter loss and warned that sales may drop as much as 10% in the fourth quarter, saw some relief this week, scoring CDMA infrastructure deals with two service providers in India and China.

The low tele-density in both India and China make both countries hotbeds for wireless growth and CDMA technology in particular, while wireless equipment sales are slowing in Europe and North America.

“India is one of the fastest growing wireless markets in the world and an important focus for Lucent,” said Jim Brewington, president of Lucent’s Mobility Solutions Group.

In India, Lucent signed deals with Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices, the private basic telephony service provider. Both companies will deploy Lucent’s CDMA 1X network. Reliance’s 1X network will cover the entire Indian subcontinent. Qualcomm has invested $200 million in Reliance, which plans to offer cheap, limited-area wireless service via fixed lines called “limited mobility.”

Tata plans to deploy 1X technology in several Indian states. Tata will also provide a limited mobility service.

Lucent was one of four Western vendor to win CDMA expansion contracts with China Unicom, which spent $1.24 billion on the deals. Motorola, Nortel and Ericsson also won contracts. However, Unicom has warned that it plans to slow down spending during the next three years.