WiMAX World: Nortel launches MIMO base station

BOSTON--Nortel Networks commercially launched its smart-antenna powered base station at WiMAX World this week, saying it eschewed the first round of WiMAX Forum certification in order to focus on the more advanced wave of next-generation WiMAX technologies next summer. Nortel also announced a new first mobile WiMAX customer trial with Golden Telecom in Moscow.

The new base station has been in various stages of development for seven years. That investment into R&D has allowed Nortel to move its platform straight to full Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna support, putting the vendor ahead of its vendors on the WiMAX migration path. Nortel claimed that its MIMO system will deliver three times more speed and twice the capacity in urban environments than other vendor’s first-generation single antenna radios gear.

By embracing MIMO early, however, Nortel may be delaying the ultimate certification of its system. The WiMAX Forum will be conducting certification trials of single input/single output systems this year, with the first certified products expected to emerge early next year. MIMO and other smart antenna technologies are not scheduled to hit the Forum’s labs until next summer at the earliest. Forum officials said vendors could submit their advanced systems for the first Wave, but would only certify the radio base stations themselves, not any smart antenna technologies add-ons. But Nortel is sitting on its base station until its full capabilities can be tested. Nortel officials said that all of its potential customers have specifically stated that they want full MIMO support, so Nortel doesn’t see any reason to go through the initial certification rounds.

While Nortel is integrating its own MIMO base station technology, it is looking to Runcom to help build its ecosystem. Runcom is developing MIMO chipsets for handsets and collaborating with Nortel to develop multi-antenna devices, though neither company said if they would build the devices themselves or work with consumer electronics or handset manufacturer.

MIMO uses multiple antennas to transmit multiple parallel signals that are separately received and processed by the end device. The initial MIMO systems are expected to use two antennas at both the tower and in the end device, but vendors have discussed four-by-four and even eight-by-eight MIMO systems. While the individual signals are no more powerful than a single radio beam, compounded they create a higher-capacity overall connection. Also beams reflecting off of obstacles reinforce the overall connection rather than degrade it making the technology optimal for dense urban environments, which is exactly where Sprint and several other carriers want to deploy the technology.