Nortel Networks Ltd. landed a mobile WiMAX network supply deal in Taiwan, a trial in Japan, and a chip contract in Israel.
The company-which launched its WiMAX portfolio in October at the WiMAX World trade show and was hawking its new offering as 4G mobile broadband technology-has trials of its mobile WiMAX solutions taking place in Germany, Canada, Greece, Russia and Mexico.
Although Nortel wasn’t named as one of Sprint Nextel Corp.’s WiMAX equipment suppliers, Nortel Director of WiMAX Marketing Bruce Gustafson said that based on the quality of Nortel’s WiMAX gear and its relationship with the carrier, Nortel fully expects to be working with Sprint Nextel soon.
“There’s a tremendous amount of excitement at Nortel,” commented Gustafson. “It’s been a long time since Nortel has moved into a new space, into an emerging technology market.”
Earlier in the year, Chief Executive Officer Mike Zafirovski declared WiMAX to be one of Nortel’s biggest focus areas and the company has since made no secret of its plans to play big-time in the WiMAX ecosystem.
Shortly after Sprint Nextel announced its plans to build a nationwide WiMAX network, Nortel named Peter MacKinnon as the new general manager of its WiMAX business. MacKinnon was already chairman of Nortel’s joint venture with LG Electronics Co. Ltd. and president of Nortel’s GSM/UMTS Networks, roles which he still maintains. At the time, MacKinnon called WiMAX a profoundly disruptive technology and said, “We’re not looking at WiMAX as a tactical strategy, we’re looking at it as our next-generation of products.”
Globetrotter
c Nortel plans to build a WiMAX network for Chunghwa Telecom in northeastern Taiwan in Yilan County as part of the country’s Mobile-Taiwan initiative. The initiative is aimed at boosting economic development by providing ubiquitous wireless broadband access to about 80 percent of Taiwan’s residents.
“The people of Yilan will now be able to take the Internet with them wherever they go, and enjoy high-speed mobile access using virtually any wireless-enabled device,” said Jackson Wu, president of Nortel’s China efforts.
Nortel said it is providing Chunghwa Telecom with 802.16e-2005 Wave 2 base stations, which contain the company’s Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output antenna technology. Nortel said it is also supplying Chungwa with access service network gateways, customer-premises equipment and network management capabilities, as well as network integration and optimization services.
- Separately, Nortel announced that it is working on a mobile WiMAX trial with Toshiba Corp. to support Japan’s National Broadband Connectivity by 2010 program. Nortel’s base stations and terminals are being used for the trial along with engineering services, while Toshiba is handling system integration and field tests.
- Nortel also recently announced that Russian operator Golden Telecom is launching a mobile WiMAX field trial in Moscow using the vendor’s WiMAX equipment. The operator said it plans to offer residents citywide access to high-speed mobile services like Voice over Internet Protocol, Internet browsing, e-mail and multimedia applications. The trial is set to wrap up by the end of this year, according to Nortel.
- Nortel also divulged that it struck a deal with Israel-based Runcom Technologies for MIMO chipsets and said it expects to deliver MIMO-enabled mobile WiMAX gear by the middle of next year.
