WiMAX goes to Brazil

Brazilian pay TV operator TVA said Thursday that it has tapped Nortel to build a trial mobile WiMAX network in the Latin American country.

Nortel will deploy its mobile MIMO-powered WiMAX 802.16e infrastructure in the 2.5GHz spectrum, allowing TVA to deliver high speed broadband net access, mobile TV and video, VoIP, streaming media, data applications and mobile commerce.

The Canadian vendor will provide the whole shebang, including consumer devices, base stations, the ASN gateway and professional services.

Testing is scheduled to start in the second quarter in Sao Paulo.

“Our trial agreement with TVA will allow us to demonstrate the technology’s ability to replicate the user’s fixed PC capabilities, such as blogging, video and VoIP, from any location,” said Juan Chico, president of Nortel Brazil.