Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) said on Monday it hopes to close its $650 million acquisition of Nortel Networks' advanced wireless technology business by the third quarter of this year.

Nokia Siemens Chief Executive Simon Beresford-Wylie told reporters in a conference call that the deal would be accretive and cash positive but did not provide any details.

Telecom equipment maker Nortel Networks said on Friday it will sell its advanced wireless technology business to NSN, propelling NSN into the No.2 position in the CDMA market, challenging market leader Alcatel-Lucent.

We still need to work through the various bankruptcy and regulatory processes in Canada and the U.S. but we are optimistic that we should be able to do this relatively quickly and close by the middle of the third quarter of 2009, Beresford-Wylie said.

This acquisition, unlike the merger of Nokia and Siemens, is not predicated on the need to find synergies. It doesn't require us to sort of turn over every stone to look for overlaps which we can reduce, he said.

NSN, the 50-50 venture of Nokia and Siemens, started operations in April 2007.

Beresford-Wylie added that the takeover would boost NSN's market share in North American mobile infrastructure from 5.5 percent to more than 30 percent, based on 2008 data.

He declined comment when asked whether NSN would make acquisitions of other assets in Nortel Networks, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States and for creditor protection in Canada in January.

In terms of assets, Beresford-Wylie said Nortel's CDMA assets are a good and a profitable one.

NSN will be acquiring the underlying CDMA software and hardware as well as the associated employees in development, product management, operations, sales and services, he added.

We will be acquiring contracts associated with the CDMA business, he added.

He said NSN hopes to acquire Nortel's LTE products, including the development and product management resources in North America and around 400 employees in Canada.

(Editing by David Cowell)

Canada Electronics