Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) today announced a new contract with Guangdong Unicom valued at $US98.5 million for its phase III CDMA network expansion project.

Under the terms of the contract, Lucent will supply its industry-leading CDMA2000 solutions and will provide services support. The new network is expected to improve the capacity and coverage in eight cities in Guangdong Province: Guangzhou, Foshan, Jiangmen, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Zhanjiang, Maoming and Yangjiang.

With this expansion, Guangdong Unicom will be able to offer new revenue-generating services such as video-on-demand, live streaming video and high-speed mobile Internet access to its subscribers. This project also will lay a solid foundation for the future because the equipment can be easily migrated to 3G technology.