14 DAY TRIAL // Alcatel-Lucent, the French company that provides hardware, software as well as services to telecommunication service providers has announced the acquisition of Nortel's UMTS radio access business (UTRAN) and related assets, after all regulatory approval having been met after the signing of the definitive agreement on the 4th of December 2006.
"This acquisition will enable the development teams to leverage additional capabilities from the integration into the broader Alcatel-Lucent and we count on the focus of the teams to deliver superior performance in the UMTS domain going forward", said Vivek Badrinath, France Telecom Group EVP Information Technology Networks & product Support.
Nortel received $320 million less significant deductions for this deal. After the acquisition, one out of four UMTS operators use Alcatel-Lumen UMTS solutions. The French company is now uniquely positioned to lead the network technological evolution from 3G to 4G and with its complete end-to-end portfolio, including CDMA/EV-DO, UMTS/HSPDA, GSM/EDGE and WiMAX and is the most fit to take the best from all technology in order to craft 4G.
"Our customers will clearly benefit from the high value this acquisition brings, and the pre-integration work has progressed very well. Our combined expertise and portfolios will enable us to deliver the most compelling UMTS offer for our customers, allowing them to provide their subscribers with innovative and high-speed 3G services. Our aim is to achieve the optimum combination of Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel's technologies, with minimum customer disruption. We are well positioned to capture the UMTS market growth opportunity," said Mary Chan, President of Alcatel-Lucent's wireless activities.