CDMA Network Rescues Where GSM Fails

The Chinese newspaper, China Daily has reported that a CDMA transmitter assisted in a rescue attempt following the failure of the local GSM network. In late February, a ferry crossing from Yantai, in Shandong Province, to Dalian, in Liaoning Province, encountered a storm and began to list in rough, icy seas. Fearing for the lives of his 80 passengers and crew, the captain sent an SOS signal back to government officials in Yantai.

There was difficultly sending a rescue ship and the ship had no voice radio. The ship was out of range of the shoreline GSM network, but employees from Shandong Unicom, a branch of China Unicom were able to activate a Nortel Networks shoreline base station that boosted coverage of the CDMA network out to the ship, and enabled the ship to be guided to the rescue facility.

Designed and developed in 1999 to meet the long-range demands of remote areas, Nortel Networks CDMA Boomer Cell has demonstrated coverage of up to 240 kilometres over water and 130 kilometres over land. As a result, it has been deployed by Shandong Unicom for its 150-kilometre maritime communications network. Ten CDMA Boomer Cell base stations have been installed to date.

"This rescue shows our excellent working relationship with Shandong Unicom. Our equipment now supports 1.25 million CDMA subscribers at Shandong Unicom, and we are now expanding into GSM, Metro, enterprise, NGN and ATM backbone networks with this satisfied customer," Tom Chui, Nortel's China director of wireless marketing told China Daily."

Posted to the site on 5th May 2003