Nortel wins first WiMAX deal

Nortel Networks today announced its first Mobile WiMAX contract with Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan to build a mobile broadband network in Yilan County, directly south of capital city Taipei. Nortel also announced a new WiMAX trial in Japan, providing infill access to areas with limited broadband coverage.

The Chunghwa deal marks Nortel’s first commercial deployment of its WiMAX base station, a multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) smart antenna system Nortel is targeting for WiMAX Forum certification late next year. The agreement expands on several other existing agreements Nortel has in place with Chunghwa, Taiwan’s national telco, as part of its M-Taiwan initiative. Nortel is supplying wireless mesh gear to build out public broadband networks in the country’s two largest cities, Taipei and Kaohsiung, and has built an experimental WiMAX test lab for the carrier as well as conducted WiMAX trials at National Taiwan University.

In addition to the base station deployment, Nortel will supply its Access Service Node (ASN) gateway, customer premise equipment and network management software. Nortel will also act as the network integrator and is currently working with Chunghwa and other vendors to develop WiMAX handsets and devices.

In Japan, Nortel has agreed to deploy the same technology in Ishinomaki, a small city on Japan’s main island (Honshu). This trial, while using Mobile WiMAX technology, won’t be testing the equipment’s mobile capabilities. Instead Nortel is deploying the gear in a fixed scenario, using it as a last-mile DSL replacement technology in an area where broadband is hard to come by. The deal is with Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and is part of its Next Generation Broadband Strategy 2010, designed to give all Japanese citizens broadband access anywhere and anytime by 2010.