WiMAX developer Airspan Networks today announced a series of products combining WiFi for client access with WiMAX for backhaul. The MicroMAX Professional Subscriber Terminal (ProST) has, on one side, an 802.11b/g WiFi radio, and on the other, a WiMAX radio.
MicroMAX Professional Subscriber Terminals come in two flavors, the MicroMAX SoC uses unlicensed 5.8 GHz WiMAX for the backhaul, while the other model uses licensed 4.9GHz, aimed at the public safety. Both use WiFi for local access. Airspan also deploys the ProST in the 3.5GHz for muniWiFi environments in Europe.
The MicroMAX base station will be available in two versions, both of which will support a wide range of Service Flows as defined in the IEEE 802.16 standard:
- The MicroMAX-SDR, Airspan’s Software-Defined Radio base station that provides a software-based radio that is upgradeable to Mobile WiMAX. It provides a high link budget for enhanced range and capacity and might also be regarded as a controller.
- The MicroMAX-SoC — System on a Chip. The cost effective and flexible small base station based on the Airspan proven WipLL product. It is 16d-only, and is not upgradeable to mobile WiMAX.
Although 802.11a can also be used for backhaul, it has limited range and no QoS capabilities, says Fujitsu. With WiMAX for the backhaul, explained Angela Champness, Airspan’s VP of business development, “capacity is better, because it is a deterministic, centrally controlled technology, which means you can define QoS centrally in terms of bandwidth, priority, latency and throughput.”
Fujitsu and Airspan also announced they will join forces with Fujitsu supplying their Network Life Cycle Services and marketing turnkey Airspan packages. This is the first system-level agreement between the two founding board members of the WiMAX Forum.
Under the terms of a new agreement, Fujitsu obtained the rights to resell their entire portfolio of WiMAX AS.MAX broadband access products in North America. Fujitsu will offer large- and small-scale base station solutions as well as indoor, outdoor and Wi-Fi enabled Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).
The Fujitsu-offered AS.MAX solution incorporates advanced network features that make it possible to deliver carrier-class quality Voice over IP, including integrated Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway messaging to enable call control and capacity reservation for voice traffic.
Voice capacity is not reserved until requested, and can be dynamically adjusted while maintaining Quality of Service (QoS), thus enabling the optimal use of radio link capacity while offering an ideal consumer experience.
With the addition of 5.8 GHz products in the third quarter of 2006, Fujitsu will have access to the widest range of frequencies in North America.
Fujitsu also announced its Mobile WiMAX System-on-Chip (SoC) solution and roadmap at the Annual Wireless Communications Association Conference 2006.
The highly integrated one-chip MAC and PHY mixed signal baseband SoC is designed to optimize both performance and power consumption using Fujitsu’s 90nm process technology, and is especially well-suited for PC cards and mobile devices.
The Fujitsu mobile WiMAX SoC is fully compliant with the IEEE 802.16e-2005 Mobile WiMAX standard. The company’s first generation mobile WiMAX SoC includes the following features:
- Highly integrated, scalable1024 Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) OFDMA PHY and full MAC processors
- Adaptive modulation schemes including 64QAM, 16QAM, QPSK, and BPSK
- Interface for MIMO RF modules
- 90nm with low-leakage process technology
- Small-footprint FBGA package
Fujitsu’s mobile WiMAX SoC will be designed into subscriber systems that will be deployed along with 802.16e-2005 compliant base stations in supporting end to end mobile wireless networks.
“As the broadband wireless market continues to gain momentum, we’ll see fixed and mobile WiMAX networks co-exist throughout the world,” said Keith Horn, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Fujitsu Microelectronics America.
But don’t hold your breath. Engineering samples won’t be available in 1Q 2007. Systems using the Fujitsu mobile WiMAX SoC will be submitted to the WiMAX Forum for certification in 3Q 2007.
Fujitsu’s initial release will provide the broadband SoC to deliver MIMO Wave 2 certification compliance. Second and third releases will follow to support full mobility, VoIP and multimedia applications over mobile appliances.
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