"The mobile operators tell us their UMTS [3G] investments are not enough, and that the data performance is not good enough. There's a problem with 3G -- the focus on 4G will happen quicker" than the market has been expecting, reckons Collins.

    Market evidence suggests,though, that there's plenty of ongoing investment in 3G technologies, with HSPA upgrades widespread among the major UMTS/WCDMA network operators. There have also been some major WiMax network awards, and Nortel hasn't been involved.

    Sprint Nextel Corp.(NYSE: S - message board) is leading the way in North America, using 802.16e infrastructure from Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT - message board), Nokia Siemens Networks (at the time, just Nokia), and Samsung Corp. . (See Sprint Nextel Unveils WiMax Plans, CES: Sprint Streams WiMax, Sprint: WiMax Options Open, Clearwire & Sprint Team on WiMax, and Sprint Goes WiMax.)

    And in Pakistan,operator Wateen Telecom has turned to Motorola for its national rollout. (See Motorola Makes WiMax Breakthrough .)

    So where does that leave Nortel? Trailing, says Heavy Reading senior analyst Patrick Donegan. He notes that the likes of Motorola and Samsung have "the key competitive advantage of major customers driving their R&D programs – Nortel currently has no such lead customer."

    One possible reason for that is Nortel's strategy, which Donegan believes is out of step with the rest of the industry with regard to the deployment of multiple antenna technologies, which will be necessary to deliver the bandwidths operators and end users will demand. (See Multiple Antennas Key to Mobile Broadband.)

    The analyst says the industry has arrived at a near consensus that next generation wireless networks will require the deployment of both of the widely recognized multiple antenna technologies -- MIMO and AAS (Adaptive Antenna Systems). But Nortel is battling against that tide of opinion.