Nortel Networks today spelled out its future WiMAX plans, indicating it would meet short-term demands by reselling Airspan Networks' fixed WiMAX gear, but looking forward to its plans to develop its own Mobile WiMAX/WiBro product line with partners Intel and LG Electronics.

Like most of the large telecom vendors, Nortel is choosing to forgo its own fixed WiMAX product based on the current IEEE 802.16-2004 standard. Instead, it has signed an OEM agreement with Airspan to resell its base station and CPE lines. Nortel plans to offer in foreign markets Airspan's 3.5 GHz frequency division duplexing kit, which is now undergoing certification testing in the WiMAX Forum's labs in Malaga, Spain. The first certified gear isn't expected to come out of the testing process until the end of the year, but Airspan earlier this week said it has begun its own ad hoc interoperability testing ahead of the Forum's testing schedule. The vendor announced it has demonstrated end-to-end connectivity between Airspan's business and consumer CPE units and a base station powered by Sequans' WiMAX system on a chip.

While supporting the initial wave of fixed WiMAX deployments, Nortel officials said their big hopes lie with WiMAX's next generation of mobile equipment based on the IEEE 802.16e standard. The IEEE is expected to finalize the standard by the end of the year, and the WiMAX Forum has said it will approve the first version of the Mobile WiMAX specification shortly afterwards.

Nortel is planning to come out with a base station and CPE line based on Intel's future Mobile WiMAX chipset as well as Mesh and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing technology Nortel and partner LG have been developing, said Mark Whitton, vice president and general manager for WiMAX and wireless mesh. While Whitton said he expects fixed WiMAX to have impact in the rural markets and as a backhaul technology, the broad-based deployments of WiMAX will come when the first mobile products start shipping in volumes, expected sometime in 2007 or 2008.

"That's our view, and it seems to be the general view of the industry," Whitton said. "[Fixed WiMAX] will be an interesting market, but it's a transitional market. It will be 16e that will really go after the Internet anywhere proposition."

Unlike other vendors though, Nortel is adding an interesting twist to its mobile WiMAX plans. It's working on incorporating South Korean proprietary technology from WiBro into its WiMAX product line. While Korean WiBro vendors Samsung and LG are working closely with the WiMAX Forum to insure some degree of interoperability between the technologies, the two tracks will most likely result in separate iterations of the 802.16e standard. WiBro does have the advantage of being fast-tracked in Korea with licenses issued and tests begun. And Whitton said that there are many more similarities between the two technologies than there are differences.

"There will be some software differences and the frequencies will be different," Whitton said. "Otherwise they're similar enough that we can use much of the same technology for both."