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WiMAX Forum Discusses Mobile WiMAX Coming Into Focus
By Tara Seals
Posted on: 10/12/2006

The mobile industry has a vision of delivering 4G services — consisting of personal broadband and a bubble of applications and content that a person carries around with them. Many players — including Sprint Nextel Corp. — have fingered the 802.16e mobile WiMAX standard as the likeliest basis to enable that vision.

The 802.16e version of WiMAX can offer both fixed and mobile access over the same infrastructure, opening the way for a new personal broadband service that gives users continuous broadband Internet access at home, at work and while they are on the move. Today, WiMAX Forum President and Chairman Ron Resnick will deliver a keynote address highlighting this capability, along with the many opportunities these services offer. At the same time, providers face challenges in accessing spectrum and educating subscribers, he noted; thus, his address will cover all sides of the issue for the mobile WiMAX ecosystem.

The first certified mobile WiMAX products are expected to be introduced into the market at the end of 2006 or in the first quarter of 2007 and will be followed in the second half of the year by equipment with multiple advanced antenna capabilities — MIMO and beamforming — for higher throughput and capacity, according to the WiMAX Forum. Widespread deployment could begin as early as next year, it says.

By 2010, there will be 15.4 million WiMAX subscribers worldwide, generating more than $16 billion in service revenue, according to Senza Fili Consulting. Of that, 57 percent of WiMAX subscribers will be using 802.16e.

According to a WiMAX Forum white paper, among the broad mix of service providers trialing or committed to deploying mobile WiMAX are wireline incumbents, 3G and 2G mobile operators, DSL and cable modem operators, CLECs, WISPs, greenfield operators and MVNOs. In addition, mobile WiMAX modules will be embedded into many data, consumer electronic and voice devices, including notebooks, PDAs, gaming consoles, MP3 players, cellular phones and smartphones, as well as devices for vertical applications, like CCTV cameras and in-vehicle subscriber stations.

However, mobile operators with 3G networks will not be the first to adopt WiMAX, according to Monica Paolini at Senza Fili. “New and established service providers that are eager to enter the mobility and portability market, but do not have cellular spectrum, will drive WiMAX adoption,” she says.

In addition to his WiMAX Forum duties, Resnick is director of industry programs for Intel Corp.’s Broadband Wireless Division. In June 2002, he launched and became general manager of Intel’s Broadband Wireless Access business startup, focused on wireless last-mile technology.

WiMAX Forum www.wimaxforum.org

(GlobeTel is a principle member of the WiMAX forum.)

http://www.xchangemag.com/tdhotnews/6ah61203148050.html

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