Nokia and French mobile operator SFR say they have carried out a technical pilot carrying WCDMA 3G/HSDPA voice call in the 900MHz band in SFR’s network.

The development is good news for Optus which is hoping to be able to use 900MHz technology to shave $300 million from the cost of its recently announced expansion of its 3G network into rural Australia.

Equipment used for the voice and data calls in the demonstration included the Nokia Flexi WCDMA base station. According to Nokia, “the 900MHz band can provide a larger coverage area than the most commonly used 2GHz band, thus reducing network deployment costs significantly especially in the rural areas. It also improves the availability of 3G services indoors due to better radio signal propagation characteristics.”

“We are impressed by the voice quality of the call, and the HSDPA user data transfer speed reached our expectations. The WCDMA 900MHz variant brings us an efficient solution, which could allow us to extend our 3G services to rural areas cost-effectively,” said Paul Corbel, Chief Technical Officer, SFR.

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