“We’ve reached the end of the beginning.” - Sean Maloney, Intel mobility group
The era of qualifying WiMax gear as “pre-WiMax” or “WiMAX-like” is over.
Today the WiMAX Forum (finally) announced gear that has been officially WiMAX Forum Certified. That means WiMax gear, like WiFi gear before it, will have been tested for interoperably and conformance to the WiMAX standard. WiMAX certified gear, of similar type, should work interchangeably with the “WiMAX Forum Certified” designation. This first wave includes only 3.5GHz gear, as Steve Stroh points out.
The WiMAX Forum revealed the first companies and products to complete certification and interoperability testing at the WCA Technical and Business Symposium in San Jose, yesterday.
They are Aperto Networks’ PacketMAX 5000 base station, Redline Communications’ RedMAX AN-100U base station, SEQUANS Communications’ SQN2010 SoC base station solution, and the Wavesat miniMAX customer premise equipment (CPE) solution.
To date, the WiMAX Forum’s certification laboratory, Cetecom Spain, has confirmed 26 additional reservations from manufacturers for testing slots for both subscriber and base station equipment certification. In order to handle this additional capacity, Cetecom already has set up multiple test lines for testing and certification for these products – a process that will continue over the next two months.
The first round of WiMAX Forum Certified products were developed according to the WiMAX Forum-defined certification profile for 3.5 GHz systems. Each hardware system was required to pass stringent and extensive test procedures, consisting of protocol conformance, radio conformance and interoperability testing in order to attain the WiMAX Forum Certification seal.
While validation was underway, the WiMAX Forum hosted two PlugFests – informal interoperability events conducted between multiple vendors. Both PlugFests tested vendor products using common certification profiles approved by the WiMAX Forum in the 3.5 GHz frequency band.
“With more than 150 commercial trials and deployments of fixed WiMAX networks announced to date, it is clear there is tremendous confidence placed in these systems by operators around the globe,” added Ron Resnick. “As an organization comprising nearly 400 member companies and overseeing a range of activities that span the globe, the WiMAX Forum now has added operations and marketing directors – along with a staff of project managers – to ensure that we meet the needs of our membership and achieve our stated goals for 2006 and beyond.”
WiMAX Forum Certified Recipient Comments:
- Aperto Networks:
“We are delighted that Aperto’s carrier-class WiMAX products are among the very first to achieve WiMAX Forum certification. This is consistent with Aperto’s long history of leadership as a founding board member of the WiMAX Forum, as a founder and lead contributor to IEEE 802.16 and the ETSI-BRAN standards, and as the chair of the Service Provider Working Group, and validates why our customers consider us the innovative, trusted leader in complete carrier-class WiMAX solutions,” said Reza Ahy, chairman and CEO of Aperto Networks. - Redline Communications:
“Our major international carrier customers have chosen Redline’s WiMAX solution based on our leadership, performance and expertise in planning and deploying advanced wireless networks,” said Majed Sifri, president and CEO, Redline Communications Inc. “By successfully achieving certification, operators around the globe can begin to benefit from the advantages of standardized WiMAX products and deliver high-bandwidth services to consumers and businesses.” - SEQUANS Communications:
“Sequans is pleased to announce that WiMAX Base Stations and Subscriber Stations reference designs based on its SQN2010 and SQN1010 silicon have received the WiMAX Forum’s stamp of approval,” stated Bertrand Debray, vice president of engineering. “This is a key milestone for the industry and our team is proud to be among the first to help bring WiMAX Forum Certified products to the market.” - Wavesat:
“Completing the Certification of our product is a major milestone for the Industry and for the development of Wavesat’s Evolutive Concept,” said Frank Draper, vice president of sales at Wavesat. “This will enable our ODM partners to supply low-cost, high-quality WiMAX CPEs for the fixed market now. “
Meanwhile at the WCA meeting yesterday, Michael Gallagher, assistant secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information said the U.S. is moving to open up WiMAX spectrum on the 700-MHz frequency band.
By 2008, it will auction off the long-awaited 700-MHz band, which is currently occupied by analog TV. The U.S. hopes to shift the TV market to digital by 2009, thereby freeing up the spectrum for WiMAX, Gallagher said.
This year and next, the U.S. government is expected to auction off the conjoined 1,710- and 2,110-MHz frequency bands. But the auction of duplex 5 Mhz channels may arguably benefit Cingular’s flavor of 3G (W-CDMA) the most. That’s what the band was designed for. The FCC argues that they’ve split the original 30 MHz E block at 1740-1755 MHz and 2140-2155 MHz into one 10 MHz block (new block E) and one 20 MHz block (new block F), in order to facilitate access to the spectrum by a wider array of new and existing wireless carriers.
Mobile WiMax is the next big thing. It’s expected to be asymetric force flattener, wielded by competitive countries like South Korea, Japan, Malyasia, India and China. Mobile WiMax gear is expected to hit the market in late 2006 or early 2007. Software upgrades to full 802.16e compatibility are expected after that. The WiMAX Forum expects to certify the first mobile WiMax (802.16e) products by year’s end, according to Ron Resnick, President of the Forum.
Beceem Communications isn’t waiting. Today they announced the world’s first chipset implementing the new IEEE 802.16e Mobile WiMAX standard. An embedded RISC processor implements the MAC functionality thereby minimizing processing load on the host processor.
Beceem Communications isn’t waiting. Today they announced the world’s first chipset implementing the new IEEE 802.16e Mobile WiMAX standard. An embedded RISC processor implements the MAC functionality thereby minimizing processing load on the host processor.
Cellular’s answer to Mobile WiMAX is currently the EV-DO Treo 700. It’s mobile. But cellular can’t cost-effectively deliver “wireless DSL”, say critics. Simplex-based Mobile WiMAX can.
WiMAX proponents claim it’s faster and cheaper because WiMAX uses spectrum more efficiently, multiple users can share the same voice and data channel (using subchannelization), it utilizes commodity-based Ethernet and IP technologies, it’s available on licensed and unlicensed spectrum, and advanced technologies like beamforming, MIMO and S-OFDMA boost range (indoors and out), lowering infrastructure cost. A cell tower supporting 100 cellular users might support 1,000 WiMAX users in a 3-6 sector array. WiMax clients are expected to cost less than $100 in a few years.All eyes are on Korea Telecom. They’ll roll out commercial WiBro this April with a Samsung PocketPC. Samsung announced a schedule for Mobile WiMAX Trials at this year’s CES:
- March 2006 KDDI (Japan)
- August 2006 BT (UK)
- September 2006 SprintNextel (US)
- November 2006 TVA (Brazil)
- November 2006 TI (Italy)
- Commercial Deployment December 2006 Omnivision (Venezuela)
Sequans hopes to move to mobility quickly, providing chips for both base stations and clients. Fujitsu, Intel, Wavesat, TeleCIS and others mostly target clients while Adaptix and PicoChip focus on S-OFDMA (Mobile WiMAX) basestation chips.
Backwards compatibility with the fixed WiMAX gear that is now being deployed is being overseen by Wavesat’s Jonathan Labs. He talked with Unstrung about the Task Group’s work, and what it means for service providers and end users. Wavesat is building a WiBro chipset, called UMobile, for the Korean market.
Deploying WiMAX to 82% of US homes will cost $1.5 billion, estimates market researcher InStat. Sprint Nextel has an obligation, under the conditions of its merger, to build a 2.5GHz network reaching at least 30m Americans by the end of the decade. It will focus on large and medium cities, while Clearwire may expand its rural and suburban coverage (above).
Sprint Nextel has access to 80% of the population, far ahead of any comparable assets held by the Bellcos such as BellSouth Broadband which is rolling out 2.3 GHz “pre WiMax” using Navini gear in the South. BellSouth is aiming to meet a goal of having 22 base stations deployed in the 2.3 GHz range to comply with minimum use requirements for the WCS spectrum formulated by the FCC. That deadline isn’t until 2007.
A 700 MHz plan would have to wait until broadcasters leave that spectrum and the FCC holds auctions — 2008 at the earliest — probably 2009-2010.
DirecTV may announce a WiMax play in a couple of months. DirecTV’s Murdock says they’ll invest nearly a billion dollars on their 2-way broadband system. A Clearwire/BellSouth partnership might be one possibility. It could be competitive to Sprint’s deal with cable operators for wireless services.
A 700 MHz plan would have to wait until broadcasters leave that spectrum and the FCC holds auctions — 2008 at the earliest — probably 2009-2010.
In-Stat foresees the WiMAX chipset market reaching as high as $950 million in 2009. A more conservative scenario, pegs this market at $450 million in 2009. Their forecast for pre-WiMAX-Certified 802.16-2004 equipment –– subscriber units and base stations –– is $42 million in 2005, growing to $3.2 billion in 2010. “The conservative forecast is $19 million and $2.1 billion, respectively.”
“Competing technologies include 3G technologies on the cellular side (EV-DO Release 0, A, and B; HSDPA) and Wi-Fi (coupled with wireless mesh networking and MIMO enhancements within 802.11n) on the networking side,” says Gemma Tedesco, In-Stat analyst.”Persuading the large service providers to build infrastructures to support WiMAX will be the key for WiMAX boosters, especially convincing cellular operators, who already have built out expensive 3G infrastructures,” says In-Stat.
Portio Research predicts that by 2011, there will be a whopping 3.96 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, up from 2 billion at the end of 2005.
Related DailyWireless stories include; Mobile WiMax: It’s Done, Mobile WiMax: It’s Sprint or Nothing, WiMax: Running Late?, Samsung Demos WiBro, WiMax: On The Road with Adaptix, WiMax Heros, Runcom Mobilizes WiMax, TeleCIS Road Show, Mobile WiMax: It’s Alive!, PicoChip and ETRI Go For It, Adaptix + LG= WiBro, Dr. Xu’s HPi Love Fest, TD-SCDMA Joint Venture, WiMax Procession, WiMax 16d+ Dilemma, WiMax: Will It Stay or Will It Go?, 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.
