Back in June when Nortel abandoned WiMax to focus on LTE (Long Term Evolution), it was painted a puzzling move given Nortel had been so bullish on WiMax. Part of Nortel’s strategic thinking was that LTE is a bigger opportunity than WiMax.
Nortel’s faith in LTE was rewarded earlier this week when KDDI, Japan’s second largest wireless carrier, said it will deploy a LTE network over its existing CDMA network by using technology from Nortel and Hitachi. KDDI expects the new network will be operating by 2010, and provide its 30 million customers with better and faster access to music, video, mobile games and online services.
In the U.S., Verizon is expected to start rolling out LTE in 2010, while Canadian carriers, Bell and Telus, recently said they will be upgrading to HSPA as part of a migration to LTE. Vodafone and China Mobile have also announced their intentions to use LTE, which offers broadband speeds of about 100 megabits/second.
Update: To be fair, Nortel hasn’t abandoned WiMax but moved is R&D resources to LTE, while signing a deal with Alvarion to sell WiMax gear.
This is the first joint development between Hitachi and Nortel, apart from some earlier interoperability testing. And the collaboration is limited to the Japanese market and to KDDI in particular, according to a Nortel spokeswoman.
But the co-development with Hitachi looks like just the sort of partnership Nortel is seeking to “de-risk” the 4G business, as Zafirovski said in September. For strategic options for Nortel's LTE program, Zafirovski pointed to what Nortel has done with its UMTS and WiMax businesses as possible scenarios
A KDDI spokesman tells Unstrung that the operator will order equipment from Hitachi by March 2009 and select LTE base station vendors by the end of next year. The plan is to have the LTE core and radio access network “developed” by the end of 2010, but that “doesn’t mean we'll be starting the service in 2010,” says the spokesman. “We haven't decided when we'll start the service.”
KDDI's LTE timeline is somewhat less aggressive than the plans of its rival, NTT DoCoMo Inc., which expects to launch commercial LTE services in 2010.
DoCoMo has also already made its LTE vendor selections. The operator chose Fujitsu Ltd. and Nokia Siemens Networks to supply LTE core network equipment, and tapped Ericsson AB , NEC Corp., and Nokia Siemens (in partnership with Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. ) to supply LTE base stations.
But Japanese operators do not yet have the spectrum they need to deploy LTE.
http://blogs.nortel.com/buzzboard Bo Gowan
Hey Mark, the “Nortel abandoned WiMAX” statement is misleading IMO. While it made a sensational headline back in June, I think it's clear since then that we are still active in the WiMAX market.
Just last week we announced a big WiMAX deployment in India (http://tinyurl.com/55724x). About a month ago we announced a WiMAX win with Fairpoint Communications to serve customers in New England (http://tinyurl.com/5aaopd). And at the end of the summer we announced a win with Comstar to deploy WiMAX across Moscow (http://tinyurl.com/6yjapq).
It is accurate to say we have moved most of our R&D efforts away from WiMAX and to LTE (or even that we have refocused on LTE). We're now partnering with Alvarion for WiMAX equipment. But to say we've abandoned WiMAX ignores the multiple customers we have recently announced.
yes4aapl
Now WiMax is Big for you Bo Gowan?
Nobody but Nortel said WiMax is not growing fast to be a business for Nortel Read again —-. The WiMAX market is not developing fast enough for Nortel to invest in both it and the rapidly emerging LTE market, says Chief Strategy Officer George Riedel. (Compare WiMAX products.)
“The WiMAX market relative to where we thought it would be 18 months ago has probably moved out not once but twice in terms of the size of the opportunity,” Riedel says. “LTE has shifted in,” Riedel says, in terms of technology and standards development, trial implementations and subsequent purchases. Another reason is that WiMAX was a niche technology and opportunity, Riedel says.
“It was a different segment,” he says. “WiMAX to us ultimately becomes the underserved broadband segment: =========== From the investor point of view Nortel is out of WiMax. You cannot be a Big Winner in a niche technology and opportunity, can you?
yes4aapl
No reply Bo Gowan? Let me ask again Is Nortel in WiMax business? I got an answer from Alvarion today. What Alvarion thinks about Nortel and WiMax?
http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=168995 Friedman also said that its new WiMax partner Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT – message board) was not able to bring in much business given the Canadian vendor's own turmoil. (See Nortel Flunks WiMax.)
“It's difficult for [Nortel] to bring us deals,” said Friedman. “Regarding risk [associated with Nortel], it's a strong company. They have good management and I hope they'll be able to get out of this situation =========== re I hope Bo Gowan will explain that.
yes4aapl
No reply Bo Gowan? Let me ask again Is Nortel in WiMax business? I got an answer from Alvarion today. What Alvarion thinks about Nortel and WiMax?
http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=168995 Friedman also said that its new WiMax partner Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT – message board) was not able to bring in much business given the Canadian vendor's own turmoil. (See Nortel Flunks WiMax.)
“It's difficult for [Nortel] to bring us deals,” said Friedman. “Regarding risk [associated with Nortel], it's a strong company. They have good management and I hope they'll be able to get out of this situation =========== re I hope Bo Gowan will explain that.
Boost for Nortel’s LTE Strategy
Back in June when Nortel abandoned WiMax to focus on LTE (Long Term Evolution), it was painted a puzzling move given Nortel had been so bullish on WiMax. Part of Nortel’s strategic thinking was that LTE is a bigger opportunity than WiMax.
Nortel’s faith in LTE was rewarded earlier this week when KDDI, Japan’s second largest wireless carrier, said it will deploy a LTE network over its existing CDMA network by using technology from Nortel and Hitachi. KDDI expects the new network will be operating by 2010, and provide its 30 million customers with better and faster access to music, video, mobile games and online services.
In the U.S., Verizon is expected to start rolling out LTE in 2010, while Canadian carriers, Bell and Telus, recently said they will be upgrading to HSPA as part of a migration to LTE. Vodafone and China Mobile have also announced their intentions to use LTE, which offers broadband speeds of about 100 megabits/second.
Update: To be fair, Nortel hasn’t abandoned WiMax but moved is R&D resources to LTE, while signing a deal with Alvarion to sell WiMax gear.
Technorati Tags: KDDI, LTE, Nortel