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Lucent Handed $500 Million Wireless Pact
(By Jim Duffy)
Lucent has been awarded a three-year, US$500 million contract by MetroPCS to provide 3G CDMA2000 equipment to the wireless operator for U.S. markets.
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MetroPCS will deploy Lucents equipment to build out new wireless networks in Dallas, Detroit, and Tampa and Sarasota, Fla. MetroPCS currently offers unlimited local and nationwide long distance calls for a flat monthly rate of $40 per month in Miami, San Francisco, Atlanta, Tampa and Sacramento, Calif., metropolitan areas. The Lucent products will be deployed to increase capacity and coverage in these markets.
MetroPCS will deploy Lucents Flexent Packet Switch and CDMA2000 1X and EV-DO base stations. EV-DO provides speeds of up to 2.4M bit/sec to support access to applications stored behind corporate firewalls, including e-mail and intranets, according to Lucent.
The Lucent equipment will also support MetroPCSs wireless VoIP services, Lucent says.
Lucent Worldwide Services will provide maintenance and professional services for the MetroPCS deployment, including network optimization, design and engineering. Lucent has been MetroPCS exclusive wireless infrastructure vendor since 2001.
MetroPCS holds 23 licenses and has more than 1.5 million subscribers.
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