Nortel, Huawei to establish joint venture

Nortel and
Huawei Techno­logies Co Ltd (Huawei)
announced recently that they have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
with the intent to establish a joint venture for developing ultra broadband
access solutions for markets around the world. The two companies have also
entered into a supply agree­ment that allows Nortel to immediately begin
engaging customers with Huawei's current industry-leading broadband access
portfolio.

Total revenues for the global
broadband access equipment market approa­ched US$ nine billion in 2005 and
included a US$ one billion IP-DSLAM segment that is forecast to reach nearly US$
two billion in 2008 according to Dell'Oro Group. Huawei was ranked the
world's number one vendor of IP-DSLAM ports for the last seven quarters and
currently holds the number one and number two position for BB-DLC voice and DSL
ports respectively. (Infonetics, Q3 2005).

The new company will combine
Huawei's market leading broadband access solutions with Nortel's voice and
broadband networking technologies to create a new product portfolio designed to
be a leader in the industry in value and performance. These products will give
service providers the ability to converge the delivery of voice, video, data and
wireless services to business and residential customers onto a common IP
platform that supports copper, fiber and fixed wireless networks.

The parties intend that the
joint venture will be majority-owned by Nortel and head­quartered in Ottawa.
The joint venture will be focused on product enhancements for Huawei's current
broadband access portfolio and the development of a new ultra broadband product
portfolio. This portfolio will be sold exclusively to Huawei and Nortel as
channel providers.

Nortel and Huawei expect to complete the formation of the
joint venture in the third quarter of 2006. Joint deve­lop­ment of products
has already begun, with availa­bility expected for all markets by the third
quarter of 2006.

DQW News Bureau Kolkata,
Feb 2