nortel networks

Nortel's LTE business is in limbo

Peggy Albright — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:06:40 -0400

Nortel Networks got the word out yesterday that it is preparing to exit the LTE infrastructure business, a move that will likely leave the veteran wireless infrastructure company without a 4G play. The company, struggling with lengthy and well-documented financial problems, said it is taking immediate and decisive actions to improve its business. One of its strategies is to "mitigate the risks associated with its 4th generation carrier wireless investments."

In a conference call with investors, Nortel's CEO, Mike Zafirovski, said the company had not settled on a plan for the LTE business, but he described its options as similar to the approaches Nortel used when it off-loaded its UMTS and WiMAX products. The company sold its UMTS infrastructure business to Alcatel in 2006. It shifted away from WiMAX this past summer when it teamed up with Alvarion to develop an end-to-end mobile WiMAX solution that the two companies now offer as partners. Nortel justified the WiMAX move, in part, with a decision to put increased emphasis on LTE, which it considered a better near-term opportunity. For a company that claimed substantial and meaningful intellectual property in both WiMAX and LTE, these strategic changes must be difficult indeed.

Zafirovski also said the company's CDMA business, which has been declining, has not improved and is under "additional pressure." He said the company is undergoing a comprehensive review to determine what types of restructuring and cost reduction initiatives can be used to improve the company's competitiveness. As recently as early August, the company articulated higher hopes for a stronger end to 2008, but Zafirovski said this week that new financial pressures, particularly the double-whammy of market competitiveness and the global downturn, will make the next few months weaker than expected. The company announced that it will be divesting itself of its Metro Ethernet Networks division. The company's future markets will now, apparently, center around enterprise technologies and carrier VoIP.

For more:
- see Unstrung

Related articles:
Nortel completes live LTE handoff
Nortel sees slower CDMA sales
Nortel teams with Alvarion on WiMAX, focus moves to LTE
Nortel goes its own way with LTE IPR licensing

Nortel completes live LTE handoff

Lynnette Luna — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:14:06 -0400

Nortel Networks said it completed the first live Long term Evolution (LTE) handoff between cell sites during a recent test at a development center in Ottawa. Nortel said it was able to maintain a high-definition video stream to a handset while traveling in a car going about 62 miles per hour.

While LTE offers theoretical download speeds of 100 Mbps, Nortel's test saw an average of 10 Mbps using a 10-megahertz channel in Canada's Advanced Wireless Services band. Nortel noted that it has demonstrated far greater speeds but in a non-handoff environment. In June, the company demonstrated data speeds of 50 Mbps in a car traveling about 62 miles per hour, but that was within one cell site.

For more:
- check out InformationWeek

Related stories:
Nortel teams with Alvarion on WiMAX; focus moves to LTE
Nortel goes its own way with LTE IPR licensing

Nortel announces the "Unwired Enterprise"

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 06:59:53 -0400

Nortel Networks announced its plan for creating the "Unwired Enterprise," which involves integrating WiFi into existing wired infrastructure. Nortel said it will bring to market WiFi products based on the 802.11n draft specification once it's ratified as a standard. The idea is to combine WiFi and mesh systems, switches and routers embedded with wireless capability and a unified network management platform. For instance, Nortel will integrate WiFi functionality directly with the Ethernet switch, as opposed to offering stand-alone equipment like a wireless access point or a router.

Nortel's seriousness in the business can be measured by the fact that the vendor plans to build products in-house by upping its R&D spending. Previously, the company had outsourced its WiFi equipment to OEMs.

For more about Nortel's "Unwired Enterprise" strategy:
- check out this article from InformationWeek
- read this release

T-Mobile to launch cellular/WiFi converged service

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:01:38 -0500

Karl Marx said that history is like the weather--many people talk about it but few do anything to change it. It is not quite the same case with WiFi/cellular converged services, but we do note that the there is a certain lack of proportion between the volume of talk and the number of announcements about convergence and what is actually available in the field, at least so far. Last time we checked, only a few convergence services have been commercially launched. Example: BT Group offers a service in the U.K., but roaming from a cellular network onto a WiFi network is limited and allowed only on the user's home WiFi network.

T-Mobile International may redress this imbalance. The company will start offering a converged WiFi/cellular service this summer, using network equipment from Nortel Networks. The service will first be available in Germany. It will be a rich and versatile service. T-Mobile customers will be able to use laptops and PDAs to use services such as video calling, video conferencing and IM without disruptions, even as they move between WiFi and cellular networks. Their connections will not be dropped, customers will not have to do anything to assure continuation of connection and they will be able to use one phone number regardless of which network they are near.

Customers will be able to connect to any of the 6,000 T-Mobile and T-Com hotspots in Germany but will not be able to use the service through other hotspots. Customers will be able to connect over 3G, EDGE, GPRS and WiFi. In addition to PC cards and converged handsets, customers will also be able to connect by using laptops from Fujitsu-Siemens which come with WiFi and HSDPA technology. The plan limits downloads to 5GB on the cellular network and 200 hours of use on the WiFi network. Note that BT and other operators involved in convergence support UMA, while the T-Mobile's system is based on SIP.

For more on T-Mobile converged service:
- see Nancy Gohring's PCWorld report
- and this Unstrung report

Cisco comfortably leads among WLAN vendors

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 19:01:37 -0500

There may not be many differences in features and quality between WLAN equipment from Cisco and such equipment from other companies. Still, Cisco leads all other vendors comfortably, according to a recent study by Forrester Research. In a close examination of the top seven WLAN system vendors, Cisco was the clear victor, said Forrester's Ellen Daley. "Cisco is above everyone," she said. "They're the one to catch, but they're going to be hard to catch."

Forrester evaluated the leading WLAN vendors--Aruba Networks, Trapeze Networks, 3Com, Nortel Networks, Symbol Technologies, and Hewlett-Packard's ProCurve division--in three categories: strategy, current offerings and market presence. Those categories were then broken down into 44 sub-categories. Overall, Cisco ranked highest and was followed by Aruba, Trapeze and Nortel. "Cisco not only has the largest market presence--about 70 percent of all WLAN deployments use Cisco gear--but it also has the most complete vision of WLANs and their integration with wired networks," Daley wrote. "Aruba and Trapeze are fast followers in technology, but both have small market presence compared with Cisco."

For more on Forrester's report:
- see Andrew Hickey's searchnetworking article

UMA disbands

Tue, 24 May 2005 20:01:38 -0400

The Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) trade group is shutting down its operations after merging into the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) cellular specifications. The impetus behind the creation of UMA was the idea that mobile network operators could extend both the coverage and capacity of their networks if they used unlicensed local-area access networks, such as WLAN and Bluetooth. Customers with dual-mode cellular/WLAN handsets would make calls on WLAN and IP networks with calls and signaling data protected en route in secure IP tunnels. The protective tunnels would end at the access gateway which would pass call data to the circuit-switched or packet-switched mobile core network.

Among the backers of the UMA group were Kineto, Alcatel, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel Networks, and Siemens. It was also supported by providers such as BT, Cingular Wireless, TeliaSonera, and T-Mobile USA. The group group released its specifications in September 2004, but five months later, in February this year, it was incorporated in the 3GPP Release 6 standards, making it unnecessary to continue as an independent entity.

Ken Kolderup, VP of marketing at Kineto, told Unstrung that, "Encouraging the UMA specifications to be adopted and carried forward by a formal standards organization was certainly a key objective for the UMA effort. We are delighted to see that objective now met with the recent incorporation of UMA into 3GPP Release 6, making it a true standard for cellular/WiFi convergence. Having achieved this major milestone, we expect the UMA companies will be able to wrap up their remaining defined activities over the next several months and devote future energies to 3GPP-sponsored evolution of UMA."

It would be interesting to see whether other groups involved in shaping mobile convergence, such as MobileIgnite Alliance and the SCCAN Forum, would follow UMA.

For more on UMA's decision:
- see Justin Springham's Unstrung report
For more on actors in the mobile convergecne space:
- see the websites of the SCCAN Forum | Bridgeport