[Lucent introduces the Lucent Flexent Modular Cell 4.0 CDMA base station using a one-of-a-kind digital platform for 3G spread-spectrum technologies.]

Murray Hill, NJ -- Lucent Technologies introduced the Lucent Flexent Modular Cell 4.0 - its new flagship CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) base station. The product is part of Lucent's Flexent OneBTS(tm) family of base stations, built using a one-of-a-kind digital platform for third-generation (3G) spread-spectrum technologies. Verizon Wireless is one of the first customers to receive shipments of the new product.

The Modular Cell 4.0 is the highest-capacity base station ever introduced by Lucent, and more than 70 percent of its hardware is common to Lucent's 3G UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) base stations. Service providers can upgrade the system to utilize innovative Bell-Labs developed technologies, such as intelligent antennas and BLAST (Bell Labs Layered Space-Time) multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) technology, which can further boost capacity to accommodate the growing demand for mobile high-speed data services.

"The Modular Cell 4.0 is Lucent's premier CDMA base station, and we expect it to be very well-received by our customers because it will protect their network investment for years to come," said Jim Brewington, president of Lucent's Mobility Solutions Group. "Our experience in engineering and designing spread-spectrum systems enabled us to leverage a common platform with our 3G UMTS products, providing us with significant economies of scale and time-to-market benefits to our customers."

Verizon Wireless will test the Modular Cell 4.0 in Connecticut and Florida in a live commercial network environment.

This base station platform's design affords mobile operators with several significant benefits. It can incorporate power distribution and battery back-up within the base station, reducing the size of the cell site equipment footprint by 33 percent, and can yield a 12 percent savings in power consumption in a wide variety of deployment scenarios over previous versions of the product.

Additionally, the Modular Cell 4.0 has OA&M (operations, administration and management) feature improvements that reduce maintenance time when components are replaced or when new installations and carrier additions are made. It also improves backhaul efficiency, which can help mobile operators reduce operating expenses.

The Flexent OneBTS digital radio shelf in the Modular Cell 4.0 protects a service provider's network investment because it can support new technologies, via field upgrade kits, including:

dual band capabilities -- base station can support both 850 and 1900 MHz spectrum in the same cabinet; mixed mode capabilities -- base station can support both 3G CDMA2000 and UMTS in the same cabinet; transmit diversity -- enhancement that can provide increased voice and data capacity whether mobile operator's customer base consists of 2G CDMA or 3G CDMA2000 users, or a mix of both; intelligent antennas -- advanced antenna and digital processing technology that further enhances 2G and 3G voice and data capacity and coverage; BLAST -- MIMO technology that uses multiple antennas at base station to send and receive wireless signals to mobile devices with multiple antennas, which can greatly increase capacity, coverage and speed at which data is transmitted. Field technicians can make these upgrades to the system without having to remove it from its deployed location.

The Modular Cell 4.0 also supports cross-carrier channel sharing, a technology that increases capacity by enabling channel card elements within the base station to handle traffic across multiple sectors or carriers.

The Modular Cell 4.0 is available in both indoor and outdoor versions and can support cdmaOne, CDMA2000 1X voice and data and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO in 1900 and 850 MHz spectrum. International indoor and outdoor versions for 850 MHz also are available. With minimal modifications, it also can be built to support other radio frequencies at a customer's request.

The product can be deployed alongside existing AUTOPLEX and Modular Cell 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 base station platforms, protecting previous investments while increasing cell site capacity and providing support for future technologies. Existing Modular Cell 3.0 base station platforms also can be field upgraded to the Modular Cell 4.0.

Lucent's Mobility Solutions Group is a leading global provider of mobile networking technologies, having deployed more than 70,000 spread-spectrum base stations for mobile operators worldwide.

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