Photos: Mobile WiMax in action

Nortel's chief technology officer, John Roese, joined the demonstration from his Canadian offices to show off the high-quality videoconferencing capabilities of Wimax.

Expanding further on a trend first described earlier this year by Nortel, Roese claimed that "hyperconnectivity" would see trillion-node networks being a reality within the next 30 years. Hyperconnectivity, a term largely invented by Nortel, refers to networks that link up not only people, but also several devices for every connected person — ultimately creating a scenario where all sorts of gadgets and machines talk to each other constantly.

"We have to build a new generation of wireless technology to connect more devices," said Roese. He suggested that mobile WiMax was ideally suited to hyperconnectivity because it "operates on the LAN paradigm, not the classic carrier paradigm" and uses spectrum efficiently enough to cut the price of connectivity.

Roese also claimed that mobile WiMax "may be the first manifestation" of 4G, but he acknowledged that the rival technology LTE (Long Term Evolution) might also qualify as 4G once its standards are ratified next year.