ORLANDO--Verizon Wireless announced at the CTIA Wireless 2007 trade show that it was giving existing vendor Alcatel-Lucent a three-year deal worth about $6 billion to be its primary vendor to deploy CDMA EV-DO Rev. A.

The companies said Rev. A will support Verizon Wireless' migration to selected service fitting into the carrier's Advances to IMS architectural approach, including A-IMS-compliant application manager and services data manager functions. The planned services include voice over IP, push-to-x, mobile video telephony and others. Verizon Wireless announced a $2 billion CDMA contract with Nortel Networks in December, which included the Rev. A upgrade, though that amount could increase. Verizon Wireless plans to extend the Rev. A upgrade throughout its entire 3G footprint, and Nortel is one of its prime EV-DO suppliers. Much of the Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel upgrades have already occurred as Verizon Wireless had already installed Rev. A channel cards in base stations covering 135 million of its 200 million-pops 3G network. The significance of the deal for Alcatel-Lucent, however, is not just in its dollar amount, but in its timing. Mary Chan, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s wireless business group, said Alcatel-Lucent hasn’t missed in a step since its merger finalized late last year and it embarked on its mammoth integration process.

“A $6 billion Rev. A contract with Verizon Wireless is certainly a commitment from a customer to us,” Chan said. “It’s a validation that we haven’t been distracted by our integration.”

Existing Alcatel-Lucent-supplied packet switches will be upgraded to support IP soft handoff and Transcoder Free Operation, and the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router will also provide IP routing and Ethernet aggregation, according to a statement discussing the contract. Verizon Wireless will also use Alcatel-Lucent’s MDR 8000 digital microwave radios and optical networking products including the optical cross-connects LambdaUnite and 1671 Service Connect (SC), and the Metropolis DMX product family, which will provide an end-to-end solution for bandwidth management and mobility traffic backhaul.

Much of the radio access network deal was a given for Lucent, which has been maintaining and upgrading the base stations in question since Verizon deployed 1X, but Chan pointed out that Verizon Wireless choose to augment the contract with router and backhaul products, coming from Alcatel’s product line. It proves that Alcatel-Lucent’s customers are not only comfortable with the merger, but are actively seeking out the combined company’s integrated products, Chan said.

“People were asking for proof points of integration,” she said. “Here it is.”