Craig McBurnett (left), chief executive officer of MiPhone and Alex Hill, vice-president for corporate development. - RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
OCEANIC DIGITAL Jamaica Limited (ODJ), a wholly owned subsidiary of Oceanic Digital Communications (ODC), a New York-based telecommunications company operating locally in Jamaica under the 'MiPhone' brand name, and ZTE Corporation, a global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, jointly announced Tuesday that MiPhone has selected ZTE to upgrade MiPhone's existing CDMA2000 network.
As part of the upgrade, ZTE USA will supply voice and data network equipment, base station subsystems and core network equipment, along with voice and data handsets and data cards. ZTE is also a major Asian producer of handsets and recently announced a deal to supply 3G handsets to the Hutchison-owned three networks in the United Kingdom
"ZTE has provided us with a proven and innovative high-performance end-to-end solution that we are very excited about," said Craig McBurnett, MiPhone chief executive officer. "Not only have we chosen a supplier who can offer us the state-of-art EV-DO and push-to-talk solutions we need, but we have found a U.S.-based organisation that is a successful global CDMA2000 company to provide the strong local support we require."
ROAMING SERVICES
MiPhone launched its commercial wireless service in November 2001 and currently provides islandwide services to over 100,000 subscribers. In addition, MiPhone provides international roaming services for customers of Sprint-Nextel, Verizon Wireless, Alltel, Telus, Bell Canada, and IUSACELL.
"We are excited to be working with one of the Caribbean's leading CDMA2000 operators as it represents not only a significant step for ZTE USA, but also the beginning of what we believe will be a long and successful relationship with MiPhone and Oceanic Digital Communications," stated Jack Yang, ZTE USA's executive vice-president of sales and marketing.
ZTE's ALL-IP CDMA 2000 and GoTa technologies are currently deployed in nearly 60 countries by over 100 operators with a global capacity of more than 30 million lines.
ZTE's CDMA2000 systems have been installed in countries including China, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. ZTE's GoTa digital trunking system based on CDMA2000 technology has been implemented in countries including Russia and Malaysia, and ZTE-patented GoTa technologies have been licensed to major telecoms equipment companies worldwide.
