U.S. Cellular announced it has awarded Nortel a five-year contract to provide advanced wireless capabilities, including high-quality mobile voice and data services, to the company’s 6 million customers. The networking deal will also allow the carrier to easily support additional new subscribers. The deal builds on Nortel and U.S. Cellular’s long-standing CDMA networking relationship.

U.S. Cellular says that it will use Nortel’s solution to offer applications beyond voice service such as Web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, picture messaging, gaming and advanced data services.

“U.S. Cellular is committed to offering the highest level of service to our customers. Not only must our network be reliable, it must also provide exceptional call quality and clarity and support a wide array of features that allow our customers to communicate in useful and productive ways,” Michael Irizarry, executive vice president and chief technology officer at U.S. Cellular, said in a statement. “We demand a lot from our network and Nortel’s CDMA technology always delivers. Nortel’s dedication to excellence matches our own, and together we will continue to offer enhanced communication, information, and entertainment services on the go to our customers.”

In more Nortel news, the telecom equipment maker announced it won an order worth more than $100 million from Indian’s state-run telecom firm BSNL to supply GSM lines in the southern part of the country. Nortel said work on the network has already begun and that it expects it to be completed towards the end of 2008.