WiMax research boom hits Nortel
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(InfoWorld) - Nortel Networks is spending 10 times as much on mobile wireless WiMax technology research today as it did a year ago, part of an initiative by Nortel chief technology officer John Roese in his first year at the post. Nortel's research investment in mobile WiMax, also known as 802.16e, is now $100 million, up from $10 million a year ago, Roese said in a recent interview as he celebrated his first anniversary. He assumed the CTO position in June 2006. As CTO, Roese oversees the $1.7 billion R&D budget for the networking equipment maker. That amount is about 17 percent of Nortel's revenues, slightly down from 19 percent a year ago, although the division still employs about 12,000 professionals, he said. The biggest shift at Nortel R&D is a stronger emphasis on WiMax and other emerging technologies, which was accomplished by lowering Nortel's R&D in what Roese called "late-lifecycle products," such as GSM technology, that still need research but are generally well defined in the market, he said. A year ago, half the R&D budget went for late-lifecycle products; now that figure has been reduced to 20 percent of the R&D budget. "Fifty percent on late-lifecycle products was inefficient," Roese said. Roese said it is important in R&D to have top developers working on the next wave of technology, not on declining segments. In all, about 20 percent of R&D is now devoted to emerging technologies such as mobile WiMax, while 60 percent is devoted to products in the middle of their lifecycle. Nortel also sold its UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) unit to Alcatel-Lucent, which will help R&D focus on other areas, Roese said. The unit was not profitable, he said. Roese believes unified communications products, including mobile WiMax, will bring "huge productivity" to network providers and large businesses alike. Fixed WiMax, or 802.16d, is already being shipped to carriers to provide backhaul communications for cellular networks but has been implemented in some parts of the world to provide broadband access instead of using copper cable. Mobile WiMax will be a high-performance wireless data network for laptops and consumer devices, Roese said, and will eventually be used for voice service as a competitor to cellular voice. "WiMax is just emerging," he said. "It can be a reusable network for mobile data, DSL replacement, video distribution, and real 4G wireless. It will be built once and used for many purposes." Some cities and towns building municipal Wi-Fi networks have been interested in whether WiMax, fixed or mobile, might be the next-generation technology that threatens Wi-Fi, but Roese said Wi-Fi and WiMax will likely be complementary. Wi-Fi runs in an unlicensed spectrum, while WiMax will run in a licensed spectrum, he noted. "You'll want endpoints from unlicensed and licensed, so you want Wi-Fi and WiMax to both come together. You may be uplinking Wi-Fi endpoints via WiMax." The WiMax Forum expects WiMax-based systems to deliver up to 40Mbps of data per channel over as much as six miles.
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O2 and Nortel have completed live mobile test calls using an emerging technology known as High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which the firms claim is three times faster than today&#39;s commercial 3G networks.
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Collaborations to help spread WiMAX are still up in the air.
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How long can the wireless networking boom last? Not much longer, according to major competitors of Nortel Networks. Ericsson, the giant of the wireless industry, put a damper on stock markets yesterday when
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SDEROT, Israel  - An emerging long-range, high-speed wireless technology is expected to spread quickly and be available globally within two years, a key backer of the so-called WiMax technology said on Tuesday.
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Motorola Inc. and Nortel Networks are discussing a joint venture that would combine their wireless network infrastructure divisions, according to a media report.
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(InfoWorld) - Clearwire shares soared after the WiMax service provider's IPO on Thursday, though later in the day they settled around their initial price. The successful IPO, which raised about $600 million, may be a good sign for the emerging wireless broadband technology the company uses to provide Internet access to more than 200,000 U.S. customers. The company, backed by Intel and Motorola, serves 35 U.S. metropolitan markets. WiMax has a longer range than Wi-Fi and can deliver higher speeds depending on how bandwidth is allocated. Because it's based on standards, WiMax could become a widely deployed technology that's inexpensive to build into portable devices. Sprint Nextel plans to use the technology as a complement to its cellular network beginning later this year. Clearwire's underwriters sold 24 million shares at a price of $25 per share in the IPO. On Thursday, the stock opened at $27.25 per share, though later in the day it settled around the $25 level. The Kirkland, Washington, company was founded in 2003 by mobile pioneer Craig McCaw, who started McCaw Cellular in the 1990s and later sold it to AT&T Wireless. Clearwire filed for an IPO last year but withdrew the filing in July after receiving $600 million in funding from Intel Capital. Motorola participated in the same round of funding, which totaled $900 million, and in the process acquired NextNet Wireless, Clearwire's hardware subsidiary. Part of Clearwire's value comes from its spectrum licenses. Unlike Wi-Fi, WiMax is expected in many cases to be deployed over licensed frequencies. Sprint Nextel holds about 85 percent of the licenses across the country for spectrum in a valuable band around 2.5GHz that can be used for WiMax. The carrier, third-largest in the U.S., has said it expects to reach as many as 100 million people with WiMax by the end of next year.
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At virtually every turn, Intel Corp. executives are heaping praise on an emerging long-range wireless technology known as WiMAX, which can blanket entire cities with high-speed Internet access.
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Manufacturers prepare for Sprint Nextel's and Clearwire's Xohm WiMax service.
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The hits just keep on coming at Nortel (NYSE: NT), the ever-increasingly less-massive Canadian telecommunications and data networking equipment company.
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Chip maker will being testing the emerging, high-speed wireless technology.
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The chipmaker and Craig McCaw's latest company partner on WiMax--a significant move for the emerging industry.
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Biggest announcement is Managed IP PBX service that uses Nortel platform to provide advanced applications.
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Nortel Networks Corp., North America&#39;s biggest maker of phone equipment, said it will pare 3,250 jobs, 250 fewer than it had predicted last month.
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Canadian telecom equipment giant Nortel  Networks Corp.  has signed a $2-billion (C$2.32  billion) supply deal with Verizon Wireless  to help the  carrier cope with an explosion in demand for broadband Internet  access.
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Sprint Nextel Corp.  and  Clearwire Corp.  plan to build a U.S. nationwide mobile  broadband network using WiMAX technology that will be five  times faster than current wireless networks and cost less.
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TechWeb - The company will be one of the first to test mobile Wimax in the United States.