Motorola wins $170 million contract in Tokyo

Japanese cellular operator TU-KA Cellular Tokyo Inc. has awarded Motorola Inc.'s Network Solutions Sector (NSS; Arlington Heights, IL) a $170 million contract to expand the existing personal digital cellular (PDC) system in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The expansion is composed of four phases. A contract for the phase 1 cell site expansion, signed in April, was for $17 million. This recent contract covers the final three phases and involves more than 500 cell sites. The value covers both installation and SC4810 and SC2410 base stations, SC410 microcells, and base site controllers. Motorola NSS has already begun equipment deployment.

Network commercial service will become operational by April 2001 in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures. The original PDC system, based on TDMA technology, was supplied by Motorola in 1994. Motorola pioneered the SC architecture in Japan to support the Japanese PDC standard. The SC architecture was later evolved to support other technologies, such as CDMA.

Edited by Ellen Jensen