LONDON — Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel have signed an agreement under which the French communications equipment maker would have the first option to buy the Canadian group's GSM activities if it decides to put them up for sale, French daily Les Echos has reported.
According to a document seen by the newspaper, Alcatel-Lucent would have 30 days to make an offer before Nortel opened the business up to other potential bidders.
The proposed deal is said to give the French group the option to acquire a license to use Nortel's GSM and Long Term Evolution (LTE) technologies. The document suggests the licensing fee would be $50 million for the GSM technology and $15 million for LTE technology.
The option for the GSM technology runs until 2008 and that for the LTE technology — which look beyond 3G technology — until 2010, Les Echos said.
If Nortel does decide to sell its GSM and follow-on 3GPP related activities, its wireless group would be left with just providing gear for WiMAX and CDMA networks.
Earlier this year the Canadian group completed the sale for $320 million and initially announced in September 2006, of its UMTS third generation network radio access business to Alcatel-Lucent.
Subsequently, this division has contributed to the planned 12,500 redundancies taking place at Alcatel-Lucent.
At the time of the sale, it was understood that Nortel's LTE related activities were included in the UMTS unit acquisition.
