Germany
InterDigital Communications Corp., through its subsidiary InterDigital Technology Corp., entered a worldwide, royalty-bearing Time Division Multiple Access patent license agreement with Robert Bosch GmbH of Germany. According to the agreement, InterDigital granted Bosch the license under its TDMA patent portfolio to sell telecommunications equipment made under the Global System for Mobile communications, personal digital cellular and Interim Standard-54/136 standards. InterDigital said it will receive a multimillion dollar upfront payment during the second quarter. A portion of that payment is a royalty advance for Bosch’s expected sales this year.
China
In conjunction with Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji’s visit, Nortel Networks said it secured additional equity investments of more than $30 million in joint-venture company Guangdong Nortel to initiate local manufacturing of cdmaOne and Global System for Mobile communications wireless equipment. Nortel said it also signed agreements valued at $60 million with China Unicom to expand two existing GSM networks in the Zhejiang province.
Australia
Lucent Technologies Inc. said Australian carrier One.Tel selected it to build the first phase of a national Global System for Mobile communications network in Sydney’s business district and metropolitan area. The contract is valued at $150 million for the next five years. The network is expected to launch in January.
Japan
Wireless handsets manufactured by Toshiba Corp., Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd.-for Japan’s first nationwide cdmaOne network launched on April 14-will feature Qualcomm Inc.’s MSM3000 mobile station modem chipsets, said Qualcomm.
Russia
Metrosvyaz, a wireless carrier and operating company partially owned by Leap Wireless International Inc., formed a joint venture to launch wireless local loop telephone service in and around the St. Petersburg, Russia, area, said Leap. The launch will add more than 10,000 new phone lines. The launch in St. Petersburg is the first of at least eight regions in which Metrosvyaz joint ventures are planned. The next operations scheduled to launch are in Tartarstan, Saratov and Krasnodar, said Leap.
