Lucent Technologies recently announced that it will participate in field testing of third-generation (3G) mobile networking technologies, which is being sponsored by China's Ministry of Information Industries (MII).

As part of the testing regime, Lucent will team up with China Netcom for W-CDMA (also known as UMTS) trials in Shanghai, and China Telecom for CDMA2000 trials in Guangzhou.

The trials will be conducted over networks of various service providers in China using 2.1 Gigahertz (GHz) spectrum, which is to be allotted to operators to launch commercial 3G services. The trials will involve live voice and high-speed data calls, and compatibility tests between the network equipment of participating vendors.

Lucent's strength in 3G is backed by a tremendous amount of expertise in spread-spectrum technology, the basis of both CDMA2000 and W-CDMA/UMTS networks, providing service providers with smooth migration paths to next-generation services while maximizing their existing investments. Lucent is leading the world's 3G mobile industry, with an installed base of more than 80,000 spread-spectrum base-stations in commercial networks worldwide, more than 50,000 of which support 3G services. Lucent has deployed CDMA2000 1X networks with more than 25 mobile operators on the continents of North and South America, Asia, Europe and in the Australia/New Zealand region.