Nortel Buzzboard

While NXTcomm08 was the big news on Buzzboard last week, Nortel was also attending WiMAX Forum Global Congress 2008 in Amsterdam.

This was our first WiMAX event since the announcement of our alliance with Alvarion earlier this month. Featured speakers at Global Congress included Barry West, CTO Sprint; Ron Resnick, President and Chairman, WiMAX Forum; Tzvika Friedman, CEO, Alvarion; and Scott Wickware, VP and General Manager WiMAX, Nortel.

Alvarion was very clear about the alliance being a landmark event for them, and Nortel used the event to showcase this new collaboration and demo our joint Mobile WiMAX solution, which combines technologies from both companies.

How did customers and analysts react to Nortel’s presence at the show and our joint solution demos with Alvarion?

My colleagues at the event said that, from a business perspective, customers and analysts thought the Nortel/Alvarion strategic agreement made complete sense for both companies and the industry as a whole. Combining the strengths of both companies was seen as a positive move towards providing operators with broader coverage and more capacity.

Customers were pleased to see the demos up and running with the Alvarion base stations already integrated.

Analysts generally agreed with Nortel’s take that WiMAX and LTE will coexist. They also concurred that LTE would be the bigger market and would come sooner than expected, while WiMAX was here now and already finding a solid base — particularly in developing and underserved areas.

I’m told that excitement about our alliance and the opportunity it brings was palpable at both company booths (which were ever so conveniently located next to one another).

Watch this space for news of early successes of our alliance with Alvarion.