A new poll of Canadians has found that the country's citizens want the federal government in Ottawa to block the sale of Nortel Networks Ltd. 's CDMA/LTE unit to Sweden's Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC).

Canadian market researcher Strategic Counsel surveyed 1,000 Canadians and found that 73% of the respondents want Nortel technology to remain in Canada.

Ericsson bid $1.13 billion for the prized Nortel unit, and its offer was much higher than the only other bid -- a $650 million offer made by Nokia Networks . BlackBerry , headquartered in Ontario like Nortel, has urged Ottawa to block the sale on national security grounds.

The sale to Ericsson, however, is proceeding apace and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he won't block the deal.

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— W. David Gardner, InformationWeek