Airspan Networks announced today that, following the FCC’s June 2007 Memorandum regarding 3.65GHz spectrum, it is launching a full portfolio of 3.65GHz WiMAX products for carrier and enterprise customers.
Airspan will offer two 3.65GHz WiMAX Base Station products, its carrier class HiperMAX base station and its MicroMAX base station which is expected to ship to customers in the fourth quarter of 2007.
In addition, Airspan also offers a full portfolio of 3.65GHz WiMAX subscriber terminals, including the indoor desktop EasyST (right), and outdoor ProST, both of which also support optional WiFi and VoIP extensions.
Airspan’s 3.65GHz U.S. WiMAX products also include a “Detect and Protect” contention protocol designed to operate in accordance with the FCC ruling and, subject to obtaining formal FCC certification, enable the use of both the restricted and unrestricted spectrum blocks.
Paul Senior, Airspan’s new CTO, commented, “We welcome the FCC release of the 3.65GHz spectrum as it will allow a broader adoption of WiMAX technology in the important global 3.6-3.8 GHz band. Airspan’s 3.65 GHz solutions enable operators who today do not have a licensed spectrum to build high value, low cost WiMAX networks in both urban and rural locations.”
In other WiMAX news, Tranzeo Wireless announced the availability of its WiMAX 3.5 GHz and 5.8 GHz mini-PCI cards for OEM customers.
Competitively priced, these mini-PCI format cards feature an extended form factor, small footprint and low power consumption making them ideal for use in embedded devices such as WiMAX customer premise equipment. They are also suitable for base station designs.
Both of the Tranzeo mini-PCI products are based on reference designs released by Wavesat, a leading designer of WiMAX chipset solutions, and compliant with the WiMAX Forum profile and IEEE Standard 802.16-2004.
The Tranzeo 3.5 GHz mini-PCI design is intended for operation in the licensed 3.3 to 3.8 GHz band and is shipping now. The Tranzeo 5.8 GHz mini-PCI card was developed to operate in the unlicensed ISM band. While full commercial release is planned for the third quarter of 2007, samples of the 5.8 GHz product are available from Tranzeo now.
Both are Linux-compatible and supported by AMCC, Freescale and Intel platforms with software development kits that are available separately.
The top four anticipated Internet uses for mobile WiMAX, according to a new consumer survey commissioned by Motorola are; e-mail, watching “live” online news, mobile TV and downloading music.
The consumer survey of Internet users showed:
- Nearly half of all those responding, 49 percent, would likely use it for e-mail;
- 31 percent would read or view “live,” real-time online media;
- 28 percent would enjoy mobile entertainment, such as interactive, on demand, mobile TV
- 28 percent said they would use WiMAX to download and listen to music
The survey of 601 U.S. Internet-using households was conducted by CENTRIS through a national telephone omnibus survey between May 9-15, 2007. The margin of error for the survey is +4 percent.
The ITU has declared that OFDM-based Mobile WiMAX should be included in the IMT2000 standard. This will place mobile WiMAX on the same footing as 3G mobile when it comes to using the 3G extension bands and, potentially, existing 3G bands.
“This is a good sign for technology neutrality becoming the accepted approach for spectrum auctions in the future,” says ABI Research analyst Ian Cox. “Mobile WiMAX products will start to appear in 2007 and can be used in unpaired spectrum, giving them an opportunity not available to UMTS.”
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