Nortel, Qualcomm and Orange have successfully completed UMTS and HSDPA calls in the 900MHz band, a spectrum which is capable of delivering wireless broadband such as mobile TV, video-on-demand, video telephony and DSL-like services to rural areas.

The companies claimed that W-CDMA (UMTS) in the 900MHz band achieves a 60 per cent reduction in the number of cell sites required to serve rural areas, and can deliver improved quality of service in urban areas by enhancing in-building penetration by 25 per cent.

Demonstrations using 16 QAM modulation and reaching data rates of 3.6Mbps were completed using Nortel's commercial infrastructure technologies, mobile handsets based on Qualcomm's Mobile Station Modem MSM6280 chipset solution and Orange's 900MHz spectrum.

"UMTS in the 900MHz band is a complementary solution to existing 3G services that will enable Orange to provide high-speed wireless internet to rural and urban areas of France, thereby enabling us to deliver a true nationwide UMTS/HSDPA service," said Vivek Badrinath, executive vice president for products, technology and innovation at Orange Group.

Nortel, Qualcomm and Orange plan to publicly demonstrate the capability during the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February.