Ericsson, GVC forge licensing deal

Mobile phone maker Ericsson will license its technology to consumer electronics manufacturer GVC, the companies announced Tuesday. Ericsson will provide GVC with the intellectual property to make so-called 2.5G, or 2.5 generation, phones that run on the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) standard, a step toward the 3G protocol, which provides wireless device users with high-speed Internet data services. Carriers and phone makers have invested a large amount of resources to bring faster phones and more advanced services to the market as the worldwide growth rate in phone sales cools off.