Alcatel-Lucent has landed a deal to build a nationwide rural WiMAX access network in the most rural country in the world, Russia. The mammoth deal will put Alcatel-developed Mobile WiMAX gear in 1000 Russian towns by the end of 2008.

Russian telco Synterra holds a national license in the 2.5 GHz bands, the same spectrum used by Sprint and Clearwire in its rollout of Mobile WiMAX. Synterra will work with regional operators throughout the vast country to build WiMAX infrastructure for broadband access in cities in towns with populations smaller than 100,000 throughout the country.

The deal is also the first major announced deployment of Alcatel-championed beamforming antenna solutions. Beamforming uses multiple antennas at the cellsite to steer signals directly to a receiver, creating a high-capacity beam with greater range, as opposed to a blanket transmission. Alcatel claims that the technology allows carriers to spread out their WiMAX footprints as a single base station can cover 40% more coverage than one without beamforming. The steered beam also allows for better indoor coverage, making it a technology suited for broadband access deployments rather than mobile ones.

Alcatel-Lucent did not reveal any financial details of the deal, but the scope of the deal is potentially immense. Even if only a single base station was deployed in each town, the contract would result in 1000 units shipped.