Nortel, Toshiba, Japanese govt trial WiMAX services

Nortel and Toshiba are working with the Japanese government on a WiMAX trial in port city Ishinomaki, because of its limited availability of broadband access. Nortel will provide base stations and terminals from its WiMAX portfolio for the trial as well as engineering services. Toshiba will handle system integration and field tests. The Nortel solution is fully IEEE802.16-e compliant and will run on the 2.5GHz frequency band. The trial, being conducted by the Tohoku Bureau of Telecommunications, a regional arm of Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), is part of MIC's 'Next Generation Broadband Strategy 2010'. The vision is targeting anywhere, anytime connectivity for all citizens by 2010 through universal broadband services supporting internet access, VoIP, video conferencing, interactive gaming and other high-bandwidth services. Nortel also recently announced its is setting up a WiMAX trial with Chunghwa Telecom in Yilan, Taiwan. The trial is conducted in cooperation with the local government and eASPNet and is part of the government's Mobile Taiwan project.