Nortel has been at the forefront of technological innovation for over 100 years. With vast experience in telecommunications and impressive Intellectual Property and deployment history, including over 1500 wireless patents worldwide, Nortel continues to pave the way for future Wireless innovations. Read our article on “3G and Beyond” to get information on Nortel’s position. Our current technological advancements include:

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Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) -- is the base radio technology used in Nortel's Wireless Mesh Network product, which is an advanced Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)/802.11 system, and in WiMAX/802.16, which is the newest emerging standard for Broadband Wireless Access Networks.

• Nortel's Wireless Technology Labs have been a leading contributor to OFDM standards forums, designing prototype systems to demonstrate our Broadband Wireless technical capabilities to customers, and performing detailed system performance studies in lab and real world environments for several years.
• OFDM enables the use of the time-frequency dimensions of the physical layer, and results in high performance receivers for real-life (time dispersive) broadband wireless channels. Nortel has developed a leadership position in this new application of OFDM technology.

Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna system -- provides additional benefits to OFDM systems by exploiting parallel spatial modes, resulting in higher capacity and system robustness.

• Includes higher spectral efficiency, higher data rates, and a more robust air interface.
• An industry leader in OFDM-MIMO, Nortel has made significant contributions to the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard (fixed broadband wireless) and to IEEE 802.16e (broadband mobility).
• Nortel’s MIMO technologies have been verified in measurements in a wide range of environments. In February 2003, Nortel Labs demonstrated peak data rates up to 20 megabits per second over-the-air using OFDM/MIMO technology with a 5 MHz carrier. Recently, this system has been extended to achieve data rates of 37 megabits per second.

Wireless Mesh Network Solution -- an enhanced public WLAN architecture that extends the reach of WLAN technology.

• Addresses the markets requirements for standards-based networks that are highly scalable and cost-effective.
• Offers end-users secure, seamless roaming anytime, anywhere.

IP Services -- enable operators to offer end users the quality of service and security that the data sessions require and allow the operator to charge the end-user based on the content delivered. These capabilities are based on the Deep Packet Inspection capabilities of the Nortel Wireless Packet Core Solution, which allows operators:

• A full range of Virtual Private Network options to support remote corporate access.
• Wireless data service to the Prepaid users, while guaranteeing real-time billing and thus zero revenue fraud.
• Strong commercial relationships with content providers who can either be charged for using the network to deliver their content, or create revenue sharing opportunities between operator and content provider.

Base Band Pre-Distortion (BBPD) -- a system of linearization and control of RF power amplifiers to optimize their efficiency and size.

• Corrects non-linearities in the transmit system to allow Nortel radios to surpass industry standards, and achieve excellent efficiencies.
• Nortel’s most recent CDMA radio systems (MFRM-2) employ proprietary in-house BBPD technology; these radios achieved higher efficiency (hence lower operator costs) than first generation radio products.
• Feedback inherent in the BBPD system is enabling advanced features such as dynamic efficiency optimization, remote emissions monitoring and advance OA&M features thus reducing customer operational costs and site visits.
• New areas of Power Amplifier investigation are targeting PA efficiencies above 30% and exploratory work is underway to push the envelope to over 50% with advanced signal processing techniques unique to Nortel.

CDMA Boomer Cell -- a unique base station designed and developed to provide extended coverage in remote areas.

• Demonstrated coverage of up to 240 kilometers over water and 130 kilometers over land.
• Designed to improve the economics and quality of rural digital cellular service.
• Reduces CapEx requirement since cell coverage over 200km reduces BTS count.

RF components and ASICs -- providing semiconductor device technology and component level break-throughs to enable improvements in product performance such as lower insertion loss, higher receive sensitivity, and reduced size.

• Nortel’s patented SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) technology for Miniature Band Reject Filters is proving to have wide applications in wireless products, ranging from RX filters, BTS Duplexers, handsets, GPS locators, low cost in-line interference mitigation filters, and many more.
• Nortel’s Wireless Technology Labs also research and design many other leading-edge ASIC technologies for single-chip channelizers, Zero-IF Receivers, and tuneable filters in Nortel's advanced products such as Wireless Mesh Network (802.11) radios, CDMA Channel Modems, base station radios for UMTS and CDMA wireless systems, and components for future OFDM-MIMO products. In addition, the Wireless Technology Labs have designed leading edge spatial processing antenna systems for Advanced Antenna Beam Steering (AABS, or Smart Antenna) systems for CDMA and UMTS base stations, as well as OFDM-MIMO antenna arrays for future systems.
• MEMS (Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems) device technologies that permit frequency agile radios for maximum deployment flexibility for customer networks in evolving markets.