WiFi Planet reports that Freescale Semiconductor and Wavesat today announced a joint reference design for WiMax-enabled CPEs targeted at both residential customers and small to medium sized businesses.
Fawzi Behman, director of Strategic Marketing at Freescale, says the aim is to enable service providers to extend their portfolio of services. Instead of reinventing the wheel to do so, Behman says, it made sense to partner with a company like Wavesat.
The Residential Gateway includes a Freescale MPC8323E PowerQUICC II Pro processor, a DSP for VoIP capabilities, and interfaces including a four-port Ethernet switch and two Mini PCI slots – one for a Wi-Fi LAN and the other for WAN over WiMax.
The board ships with Linux 2.6.x with Samba on Flash. The mini-ITX form factor makes it easy to design compact WiMAX CPE systems. Combined with Wavesat’s Mini-PCI card and MAC software, it is said to enable a cost-effective, compact solution for WiMAX-enabled residential gateways.
The reference design adds wireless, voice and video to a media server and allows a service provider to consolidate all their services into one solution. “This enables both wired and wireless solutions for residential gateways,” Behman says.
Recently, Wavesat announced it is developing a 5.8 GHz Mini-PCI module and reference design with Texas Instruments that will be commercially available by Q4 of 2006 from Wavesat.
A $200 WiFi gateway providing both voice and WiFi for $40-$50/month could be a killer product. A licensed 2.5 GHz backbone from Clearwire or Sprint might be one option but a 5.8GHz unlicensed solution could keep the duopolies in check. Satellite tv optional.
Perhaps $5,000, 5.8 GHz WiMAX basestations will take root on the rooftops of community centers.
In other WiMAX chip news, SEQUANS Communications, a leading supplier of mobile WiMAX chips, has raised US $24 million in a new round of equity financing.
Also, today, Intel confirmed that its Rosedale 2 WiMAX chipset will support both 802.16d-2004 and 802.16e-2005 and that an expanding group of customers has adopted the technology.
Intel said ten customers, including new additions Alcatel and Navini Networks, have joined the Rosedale 2 camp. Intel previously confirmed some of the characteristics of Rosedale 2, but added that its Ofer-R CPE platform will also include WiFi as a distribution technology within the home.
According to In-Stat, the number of fixed WiMAX subscribers is projected to reach 16 million by 2010, while mobile WiMAX subscribers will range from 15 million to 25 million.
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