Nortel Networks teams with Huawei in joint venture

Nortel Networks Corp has entered a joint partnership with China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to develop residential broadband equipment. Nortel and Huawei will create a new company based at Nortel's Ottawa facilities to further develop Huawei's broadband portfolio and develop next-generation products. The two firms have also inked a separate agreement that will see Nortel resell Huawei's gear. The agreement marks Nortel's return to the broadband Internet-access market, placing it in direct competition with Alcatel. The name of the new Nortel-Huawei company and its launch date have not been announced, although joint development work has already begun and the first products are expected this fall. Huawei is the world's number one vendor of IP-DSLAM broadband access ports, which will be combined with Nortel's voice and broadband networking technologies. Based in Shenzhen, Huawei has also joint ventures with 3Com and Siemens, while Nortel has a joint development agreement with South Korea's LG Electronics....