Nortel and Toshiba have announced an agreement to jointly develop mobile WiMAX base stations for the global market.

The base stations will offer low power consumption and will feature miniaturized equipment, the companies said. Toshiba will supply the radio module, while Nortel will provide the digital module.

In Japan, Nortel and Toshiba jointly participated in the government’s next-generation wireless trial using WiMAX solutions, which was completed in the Tohoku region of northern Japan during December 2006 to March 2007.

“Japan is an important market for us and this agreement with Toshiba is positioning Nortel to play a further role in helping Japanese and global service providers deliver high-speed mobile broadband services,” said Peter MacKinnon, general manager of Nortel WiMAX and Wireless Mesh, and chairman of LG-Nortel. “It also offers a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate how two technology powerhouses can pool innovation to develop new WiMAX products that simplify business in this era of hyperconnectivity – where anything that would benefit from being connected to the network will be connected.”