At the WiMAX World conference in Boston this week, Nortel demonstrated an IPTV feed running over WiMAX, or wIPTV. The demonstration reportedly downloaded broadcast TV via a 4 Megabit stream with an integrated electronic program guide. Because of the vendor's IMS infrastructure, users can view photos and instant message while the broadcast TV is streaming.
If you consider that Sprint recently announced its intention to build out a multi-billion dollar WiMAX network and that the carrier also has a partnership with four major cable companies (including Time Warner, Comcast and Cox) this development begins to get very exciting. However, our sister publication FierceEnterprise reported today that a number of demonstrations at WiMax World were plagued by technical problems. No word yet on whether Nortel's demonstration was affected.
For more on Nortel's wIPTV-MAX demonstration:
- see this press release