Nortel Builds WiMAX Ecosystem to Ensure a True Mobile Broadband Experience

Nortel has selected ZyXEL Communications, one of the world's leading device manufacturers, to join the growing ecosystem of companies working with Nortel to deliver broadband wireless communications solutions around the world based on WiMAX technology. Nortel is also working with leading WiMAX chipset manufacturers to include chipsets, which will enable WiMAX capabilities in a variety of devices, in Nortel's end-to-end WiMAX solutions.
A strong WiMAX ecosystem is important to meeting the mobility demands in the era of Hyperconnectivity where everything that can be connected to the network, will be connected, encompassing person-to-person communication, person-to-machine and machine-to-machine.Nortel's WiMAX ecosystem will allow service providers to take advantage of the opportunities of a hyperconnected world with end-to-end solutions delivering the high-bandwidth capacity and super-fast transmission speeds essential to real-time mobile applications such as VoIP and video. The true mobile broadband experience that can be offered over WiMAX delivers the potential to participate in a video-conference from a mobile phone while waiting for a flight, or to let the kids pass the time on long road trips by playing on-line video games from the backseat of the car.

"The development of a complete WiMAX ecosystem, including infrastructure, chipsets and devices, is integral to the real world success of WiMAX technology," said Peter MacKinnon, general manager, Nortel WiMAX and Wireless Mesh and chairman, LG-Nortel JV. "Nortel is driving the development of its WiMAX ecosystem by supporting and pursuing relationships with leading device and chipset manufacturers like ZyXEL, Runcom and Sequans, to name a few."

Nortel will work with ZyXEL, Runcom, Sequans and others to offer service providers a variety of end to end WiMAX solutions. These solution offerings will include ZyXEL PCMCIA cards and customer premises equipment (CPE), such as indoor and outdoor residential gateways, which will be bundled for sale with Nortel's WiMAX infrastructure technology.

Building on the collaboration between Nortel and Runcom that was announced on October 10, 2006, the two companies have entered into the commercial phase of an agreement to include Runcom's MIMO-based RNA200 chipset - which enables mobile WiMAX capabilities within devices such as phones and laptops - as part of Nortel's end-to-end WiMAX solutions.

Furthering the breadth of the WiMAX ecosystem, Nortel has successfully conducted initial interoperability testing of MIMO-based WiMAX products with Sequans. This testing was conducted at Nortel's R&D labs in Ottawa and included testing over live air of MIMO Matrix B which is the technology that makes WiMAX and 4G three times more spectrally efficient than HSPA.

Additional interoperability testing of Nortel's MIMO-enabled WiMAX solutions occurred at the WiMAX Forum's third annual Mobile WiMAX PlugFest in Sophia Antipolis, France. This event brought together 33 Mobile WiMAX equipment developers to test and showcase the interoperability of their products. This was the first time the WiMAX Forum has tested key mobility features such as MIMO. Nortel will continue to build on these successes at its Center of Excellence - WiMAX 4G Ecosystem in Taipei where vendors and manufacturers work together to drive the development of WiMAX.

"Our total solution will include devices essential to easy uptake of WiMAX services," said Stone Tseng, director, WiMAX 4G Ecosystem, Nortel. "Simple CPE connectivity devices like PCMCIA cards, USB dongles, indoor and outdoor CPE with Ethernet and VoIP options will be available in the coming months, but that's just the beginning. Nortel will continue to work with various ecosystem partners to bring handsets, smart phones, PDAs and other advanced WiMAX devices to market over the next 12 to 24 months."