Nortel Buzzboard

A few days ago I pointed to an exclusive article from Telephony Magazine that highlighted an LTE industry first between Nortel and LG Electronics.  Today, Nortel issued an official press release on the accomplishment, which you can see here.

One particular paragraph from the release provides some additional technical details of the demo:
The LTE demonstration was conducted over a network consisting of multiple cell sites and sectors served by Nortel’s eNodeB LTE base station and ATCA-based Access Gateway. The interoperability between Nortel’s network and the device from LG Electronics is based on 3GPP Release 8 Standard. As the first in the world to reach this milestone, Nortel is leading the way to making …

Read the rest of this entry »

Telephony magazine looks to have an exclusive story today with this article by Kevin Fitchard about a Nortel industry first.  Kevin talked to Danny Locklear, VP of marketing for Nortel carrier networks, about Nortel’s completion of the industry’s first live air handoff of an LTE data call between cell stations.

In the article, Danny says that Nortel completed handoffs between cell stations at speeds as high as 100 kilometers per hour.  The feat was achieved using prototype Nortel LTE radio and network gear and prototype handsets early LTE mobile devices from LG Electronics.  An HD video stream was used during the call handoff testing.

Of course, Nortel’s been doing prior LTE testing to get to this point …

Read the rest of this entry »

Nortel Chief Technology Officer John Roese recently talked to Gord Pitts of the Globe & Mail about his role as CTO and the transformation of Nortel’s R&D.  You can see part of that interview in the below video.

The interview was also turned into a written Q&A, which you can see here.  There is very little overlap between the video and the article, so both are worth your time.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the ongoing 4G debate between WiMAX and LTE, one advantage always given to WiMAX is its availability for immediate roll-out. However, with delays in Sprint’s WiMAX network and conflicting signals being given by WiMAX vendors on demand, that advantage may be questioned by some.

Two recent articles provide some perspective on the difference in where WiMAX and LTE are on service providers’ radars. Unstrung recently had this article that detailed the progress of WiMAX, which the WiMAX Forum says has reached 305 deployments in 118 countries.

On the LTE side, GigaOM just did some research of it’s own for this article that provides the current LTE plans (or lack thereof) of U.S. wireless operators. In …

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently here at Nortel’s Richardson campus we had a “technology day” that allows the entire employee base to get an inside view on the various labs and customer showrooms that we have on campus. I took the opportunity to take a few pictures and a little video of the event.

Various R&D and tech leaders set up peds in the Nortel cafeteria to talk about the areas they focused on. You can see a quick video of that part of the event here:

In addition, employees were able to sign up for tours of the various local Nortel labs and customer showcase areas. Below are some …

Read the rest of this entry »

The BBC recently tested out Nortel’s 40/100gig optical solution. No, not for deployment in their own network, but as part of the latest edition of Click, a weekly tech-focused program on the telly.

BBC Click traveled all the way to Nortel’s technology labs in Dallas for its latest edition on the future of communications. The show delved into a variety of technologies, including 40/100gig, telepresence, IPTV, WiMAX and LTE. Nortel even helped Click stage a mock health emergency to show how WiMAX can improve emergency care. Nortel associate fellow from MIT Andy Lippman and new WiMAX GM Scott Wickware are also interviewed during the show.

You can see the entire show via streaming …

Read the rest of this entry »

If you saw this morning’s news that Russian service provider Comstar was deploying a Nortel WiMAX solution in Moscow, you might have asked yourself “I thought Nortel got out of WiMAX.” And I wouldn’t blame you — shortly after we announced a strategic relationship with Alvarion that would allow Nortel to focus our R&D resources on the rapidly emerging LTE market, a few articles started appearing that boiled the news down to a snappy one-liner.

“Nortel ditches WiMAX” was a popular one, with various equally cringe-worthy examples being “Nortel dumps WiMAX” and “Nortel Flunks WiMAX.”

Of course, Nortel has not “ditched WiMAX” at all — we are working with Alvarion for WiMAX access solutions. Nortel is still dedicating resources …

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, Alex Lewis had this interesting post on the hyperconnectivity.com blog about the possibility of AT&T looking to deploy WiMAX. This is one of several recent articles that indicate a possible bright spot for WiMAX, which has been taking a PR drubbing of late in comparison to LTE technology.

Unstrung, which has been following AT&T’s WiMAX activities closely for some time now, had this new article Friday indicating that AT&T might be considering WiMAX for rural U.S. deployments, especially as rising copper costs make rural DSL deployments more expensive.

The article also highlights that AT&T already has a limited deployment of WiMAX technology in Alaska using 2.3 GHz equipment from Alvarion. Alvarion, of …

Read the rest of this entry »

There were a ton of articles that came out from yesterday’s news. Here’s my list of the more insightful ones:

Reuters has a nice summary of the news with quotes from the IR day event and several analysts, as does the Globe & Mail.
Telephony did a nice feature on the LTE/WiMAX news that included an interview with Scott Wickware.
Light Reading provided probably the most in-depth coverage of the Carrier Ethernet win with Verizon.
Barron’s debated which piece of Nortel news was responsible for the stock price increase.
The LTE vs. WiMAX debate raged on, with Network World talking about what it means to Nortel, and Tech Observer talking about what it means to the industry.
Total …

Read the rest of this entry »

Scott Wickware, new GM for Nortel’s WiMAX businessYesterday was a big news day for Nortel, so let’s start sorting through the details of some of it and what the news means for Nortel’s direction.

The item that got the most attention yesterday was Nortel’s news in the 4G wireless space. Nortel announced a change in R&D direction here, shifting it’s main R&D efforts to 4G LTE to address that market’s accelerating time schedule. At the same time Nortel announced a strategic WiMAX agreement with Alvarion where they will become Nortel’s supplier for mobile WiMAX base stations as part of an end-to-end WiMAX solution.

[UPDATED: Watch …

Read the rest of this entry »