Motorola Nears Wireless Network Unit Sale To Nokia Siemens

Motorola Inc is close to selling most of its wireless-network equipment business to Nokia Siemens Networks for $1.2 billion, a source familiar with the matter said. Nokia Siemens Network (NSN) would buy Motorola’s network unit under the deal, which could be announced as early as possible. Motorola plans to keep its iDen technology, which works for walkie-talkie types of communications.

Motorola, which has been losing market share in cell phones for years, is splitting into two units: one comprising phones and set top boxes, and the other its enterprise and network equipment business.
NSN was in the running last year to buy a larger chunk of Motorola, before the US group decided on the split.

NSN also tried last year to buy two separate units of bankrupt Canadian telecoms equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp, but was trumped on both occasions, once by mobile networks market leader LM Ericsson and once by Ciena Corp.

Earlier this month, one analyst questioned NSN’s move to buy Motorola’s network assets, which are mainly based on the GSM standard, rather than on the Nortel CDMA and LTE-standard assets that NSN tried to buy.

Motorola declined to comment on the news, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The source is anonymous because the deal is not public.