STOCKHOLM — Swedish wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson on Saturday said it had penned a deal to buy a majority of Nortel Networks’ North American wireless business for $1.13 billion.
The Stockholm-based group said the purchase is on a cash and debt-free basis and covers the older CDMA and newer LTE wireless businesses of Nortel’s Carrier Networks unit.
Under the deal, Ericsson will get CDMA contracts with North American operators such as Verizon, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, Bell Canada and Leap, as well as LTE assets, and certain patents and patent licenses relating to CDMA and LTE.
CDMA, or code division multiple access, is a rival standard to the dominant cellular standard GSM, or global system for mobile. LTE, or long-term evolution, is a next-generation wireless network technology that promises to be much faster.
