WiFi Planet fills us in on The Evolution of WiMax Certification (pdf) from Senza Fili’s Web site. It shows 5 waves of certification. The WiMax Forum, like the WiFi Alliance, is supposed to assure interoperablity from different vendors.
Monica Paolini, the president of Senza Fili and the paper’s author, says most of the people she spoke to had different perceptions of the certification process. “The information is out there, but it’s a little scattered,” she says, “So I thought it would be useful to put it all together.”
You need to have interoperability for each spectrum band, and separately for TDD [Time Division Duplex] and FDD [Frequency Division Duplexing] and for different channels,” Paolini says. “And for each one of these possible combinations, you need to have at least three vendors.”
According to the chart, WiMax certified indoor clients & PCMCIA cards might be expected in a year. Mobile WiMax in two.
Samsung showed off their WiBro handsets (above) this month. WiBro is the Korean mobile broadband wireless standard which is merging with 802.16e.
The heat is on Intel (and Nokia) to move faster. Samsung says they’ll deliver WiBro handsets in 6 months. WiBro is lots closer to Mobile WiMax than (plain vanilla) WiMax is. Intel’s secret sauce may be adaptive antennas and MIMO with Arraycomm. But is the gain worth the pain? Timing is everything. And then there’s Qualcomm’s Flarion which doesn’t need to wait for any (stinking) 802.20 standard.
China Telecom said it expects mobile and broadband operations to be as important as its core fixed-line business in ten years. Both Samsung and LG Electronics are making WiBro chips. Korea’s national network becomes a fully operational battle station next year.
Unstrung has a complete rundown of WiMax Carrier Trials around the world.
Related DailyWireless stories include; WiBro: The Heat is On, Samsung Demos WiBro, WiMax Handsets, Arraycomm Shoots, Scores, Arraycomm + Intel Beam WiMax, Arraycomm + TeleCIS, Adaptix + LG= WiBro, Cell Vrs City Clouds: The Battle Begins, Sprint/Cable Partner Up, Runcom Mobilizes WiMax, Mobile WiMax Chips and WiMax: HPi - Not.
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