Nokia plans UK R&D centre Richard Wilson Farnborough is to be the site of a major mobile communications research and development centre for Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications group. The ten-acre site at Southwood, Hampshire will employ 600 staff carrying out R&D across a number of Nokia's mobile communications products including mobile phones, communicators and switching systems. It will become one of Nokia's main research centres
for the development of future mobile communications technologies such as GSM and CDMA. "It will be our largest mobile communications R&D site outside of Finland," said Peter K?hne, managing director of Nokia Telecommunications (UK). The company would not confirm the level of investment in the centre, which will absorb the R&D departments at other Nokia sites around the country, including the mobile phone research group at Camberley, Surrey. The transfer of these
staff will account for most of the 600 jobs, but over 100 new research jobs are expected to be created when the Farnborough site is operational next year. "We are growing at around 20 per cent per year so I expect there to be at least a hundred or so new jobs created," said K?hne. Nokia's decision confirms the UK as a leading centre for mobile communications product development. Ericsson develops handsets and basestations through its Orbitel subsidiary, Motorola develops basestations at Swindon and NEC's Reading development group designed its first GSM handset last year. Recruitment of designers with the necessary digital and RF expertise has benefited from the growing number of design-houses having mobile communications silicon and systems designers. Work on the site at Farnborough is due to start in April.