The Canadian group says the alliances will complement the work it is already doing with LG Electronics in a recently formed joint venture targeting mobile WiMAX applications.

On the fixed broadband wireless side, Nortel is linking with Airspan through a ‘master purchase and sale agreement’ that gives Nortel worldwide rights to resell Airspan's HiperMAX, MacroMAX and MicroMAX base-stations as well as EasyST and ProST customer premises equipment.

The AS MAX product range is targeted at indoor use and is ‘self-installable’, while the EasyST is said to be the first of type to offer fully indoor plug-and-play WiMAX services. The products will be available in the third quarter 2005 and Nortel expects to start shipping fixed WiMAX products in the first quarter of 2006.

Nortel joins a long list of major OEMs that have opted to sell fixed WiMAX kit developed by specialist groups. For instance, Lucent Technologies and Alcatel have teamed with Alvarion Ltd for 802.16.2004 compliant kit, while Ericsson also has a reseller deal with Airspan.

Airspan and Nortel said they would work closely to evolve and market WiMAX solutions in the frequency bands supported by the WiMAX Forum for implementations starting with the 802.16-2004 WiMAX standard.

Nortel also said it would build on its key intellectual property and standards contributions in OFDM, MIMO, and wireless mesh networking to deliver mobile WiMAX products in time for trials in mid 2006. Its collaboration with Intel is aimed at this target date. The mobile WiMAX standard, 802.11.16e, is expected to be ratified in the next few weeks.

The deal with Intel will continue alongside Nortel’s work with LG in developing WiMAX/WiBro equipment based on the 802.16e standard though the LG-Nortel joint venture.

Equipment for WiBro, the Korean flavor of 802.16e, is scheduled for commercial availability following the 2005 field trial deployment in Asia, with additional mobile WiMAX solutions set to be commercially available following the 2006 trials in North America.