Motorola Unloads Infrastructure Unit on Nokia Siemens

Motorola has found a buyer for its network equipment business–a portion of it, anyway. Nokia Siemens Networks will pay $1.2 billion for most of Motorola’s network infrastructure operations, the companies announced Monday.

Under the terms of the deal, Motorola (MOT) will retain its wireless patent portfolio and iDEN assets, while Nokia Siemens acquires all that remains: the company’s GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access), WCDMA (Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access), WiMax and LTE (Long-Term Evolution) operations, along with contracts to supply some 50 wireless carriers and cable companies, among them top wireless carriers like Verizon (VZ), Sprint Nextel (S) and KDDI in Japan.

Not a bad deal for Nokia Siemens, which had been struggling to bolster its presence in North America. The company last year bid in two auctions for Nortel Networks’ assets and lost both times, first to Ericsson and then to Ciena.

For Motorola, which has been looking to unload its network infrastructure business for quite some time now, the deal is an important step in its plan to spin off its mobile and cable set-top box divisions into a separate company early next year.