SAN FRANCISCO-Wireless broadband network provider Nextlink Communications Inc. announced at the 2000 Broadband Wireless World Forum held in San Francisco last week that it has selected Nortel Networks’ Reunion ATM-based point-to-multipoint Frequency Division Multiple Access and Time Division Multiple Access solution, jump-starting the rollout of Nextlink’s long-awaited national broadband network.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Nextlink operates its local fiber rings in 49 markets across the country and provides wireless broadband service in Dallas and Los Angeles.
Analysts had speculated that the previous lack of affordable, high-quality local multipoint distribution services equipment was partly to blame for the delay in Nextlink’s service launch.
Now with the selection of Nortel to provide the core network equipment, Nextlink said it plans to commercially launch wireless broadband service in 25 more U.S. markets by the end of the year. The company did not disclose which markets would be included.
Nextlink owns the majority of the 28 GHz spectrum licenses in the United States.
It competes with Teligent Inc., Winstar Communications Inc. and Advanced Radio Telecom, all of which already have widespread U.S. wireless broadband deployments, in the LMDS market.
Nextlink said it will use its wireless capabilities to complement and extend the reach of its local fiber optic networks. Nextlink and Nortel also said they plan to extend their relationship further in a technology initiative designed to expand the use of broadband wireless solutions in a wide-area Internet Protocol network between several major metropolitan areas.
This will help create a virtual Ethernet network, enabling Nextlink to capitalize on data services, the company said.
Additional vendors also will be contracted by Nextlink in the future to expand the network.
“As we have said all along, we intend to use a multivendor strategy for our broadband wireless networks and we expect to award additional contracts at the appropriate time,” said Doug Carter, Nextlink chief technology officer.
