Nortel this week announced it is extending Asian reach further, partnering with Korean telecom vendor LG, and that it has reached a critical trial milestone with its high-speed downlink packet (HSDPA) access gear.

Just days after striking a joint venture partnership with wireless vendor China Putian, Nortel said it has inked a similar memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s LG Electronics for the marketing, manufacture and development of Nortel’s telecom equipment portfolio in that country. The 50-50 joint venture will bring Nortel’s entire line of wireless, wireline, optical and enterprise products to the Korean market, but the two companies biggest synergies will be in the wireless space, where Nortel is the leading provider of infrastructure and LG a major handset maker.

LG officials said that the JV will allow the Korean firm to design its handsets against Nortel’s infrastructure portfolio, giving it an edge in bringing new 3G phones to market outside of Korea. Meanwhile, Nortel gets access to LG’s extensive sales channels in East Asia.

“To really be able to scale yourself, to take advantage of large opportunities, you need local partners with local contacts,” said Alan Pritchard, vice president for marketing for Nortel’s GSM/UMTS product line.

Back in North America, Nortel and Qualcomm announced today they had completed live HSDPA calls using commercial handsets and base stations. Using a reference design handset fitted with Qualcomm’s MSM6275 HSDPA chipset, Nortel said it demonstrated download speeds comparable to ADSL from a moving vehicle.