Nortel wins Bell Mobility EV-DO upgrade

Nortel Networks today announced it has been tapped by Bell Mobility to supply the EV-DO upgrade to the Canadian provider's CDMA network. While the deal comes as little surprise, since Nortel is Bell's sole supplier of CDMA gear, it notches another 3G deal on the vendor's belt and adds another $126 million to its network coffers.

In December, Bell announced it would roll out EV-DO in its major markets in eastern Canada after conducting technical trials in Toronto. The rollout will be completed in 2006, but Bell has not revealed the extent to which it will proliferate the technology throughout its footprint.

The network will be Canada's first 3G network, supporting typical speeds between 300 kb/s to 500 kb/s with a theoretical top capacity of 2.4 Mb/s. Of the $126 million contract spread over multiple years, a portion will go to supporting Bell Canada's existing 1X network, while the rest will go toward the line card and software upgrades necessary to implement EV-DO.

With the Bell Canada win, Nortel said it is now a supplier in 12 worldwide EV-DO launches. Nortel has won contracts with both Sprint and Verizon Wireless in the U.S. as well as Telstra in Australia and Vesper in South America.