Nortel, LG conduct HSDPA trials

Nortel Networks' and LG Electronics' new partnership bore its first fruit today as the two companies announced the completion of a High-Speed Downlink Packet Access call over commercial infrastructure and handsets.

Using currently available UMTS equipment from Nortel and the LG HSDPA phone slated for release late this year, the companies said they downloaded music clips and streamed three-minute streaming video clips (using the LG phone as a modem connected to a PC) from a moving car. The vendors said the tests achieved stable download speeds of 1.4 Mb/s in real-world conditions.

Many vendors and carriers have announced HSDPA trials and in the last few months as carriers prepare to upgrade their UMTS with the new mobile broadband augmentation. On Wednesday, T-Mobile announced an HSDPA trial network in Berlin using an unnamed vendor's gear. In February, Nortel and Orange demonstrated HSDPA links to data cards at the 3GSM Congress in France, using the commercial UMTS network Nortel deployed for that carrier in Cannes. In January, Lucent Technologies and Cingular announced a similar live test in Cingular's UMTS trial network in Atlanta. But Nortel and LG claimed that their trial was unique since it used equipment that is either already deployed commercially or scheduled for commercial release in the coming months, instead of prototype equipment.

So far Nortel has announced one commercial HSDPA contract, but it is one of the most significant ones awarded to date: an upgrade of MMO2's Nortel MMO2 gear across the U.K., Ireland and Germany. While Nortel has kept its other deals under wraps, its heavy HSDPA trial involvement with pan-European operator Orange points to another possible major contract in the works. Such a deal would help offset the disappointment of Nortel failing to win one of the initial contracts with Cingular to rollout UMTS/HDSPA, despite having launched initial UMTS networks for AT&T Wireless.

Nortel and LG cemented their running partnership in January, announcing a 50-50 joint venture to bring Nortel's entire wireline and wireless portfolio to the Korean market and give LG access to Nortel's portfolio of GSM and UMTS infrastructure.