Alvarion seals WiMAX deal in Taiwan

Alvarion, an Israeli-headquartered WiMAX RAN supplier, has won a contract with VMAX Telecom, a mobile WiMAX licensee in Taiwan.

The deal, worth $12m for Alvarion, involves the supply of 100 base stations in the first stage of a three-part WIMAX rollout in the northern provinces of Taoyuan and Hsinchu where VMAX has a licence.

The WiMAX network will enable VMAX to provide wireless IP services such as voice, data, video and gaming. VMAX is on course to be the first operator to launch a commercial WiMAX service in northern Taiwan.

“VMAX strongly believes in WiMAX as the best way to provide our customers the most advanced mobile broadband services available,” says Teddy Huang, VMAX CEO. “Subscriber growth is expected to reach 500,000 in five years.”

VMAX is expected to use a total of 1,200 base stations in the planned three-stage project.

Samsung, as part of the first phase of the project, is supplying 200 base stations to VMAX. The contract, awarded in December 2008, is worth between NT$400-500m ($12-15m) for the South Korean supplier.

The awarding of contracts for the second phase of the project is expected by the end of 2009.