WiMAX technology has taken a bold step onto the proving grounds this week in Vancouver, BC, and Malaga, Spain. During the WiMAX Forum™ quarterly members’ meeting in Canada, several application demos – ranging from Xbox wireless console gaming over WiMAX to WiMAXbased streaming media – are being showcased. Half a world away in Spain, the WiMAX Forum Certification test lab at Cetecom has opened and begun testing some of the same equipment in use at the members’ meeting in Canada.
“We’re excited by the opportunity to show off the capabilities of WiMAX technology in Vancouver and prove that WiMAX is real,” said Ron Resnick, president of the WiMAX Forum. “At the same time, the fact that much of the equipment running successfully in Canada is the same equipment going through certification in Spain is extremely encouraging and bodes well for the future of WiMAX and the advent of true personal broadband.” More than 400 participants from WiMAX Forum member companies are attending the event in Vancouver, where there have been keynote speeches from Nortel and KT (Korea Telecom). Also at the event, demonstrations from Nortel, Microsoft, Disney, Logitech, Cisco, AT&T, AudioCodes, Kencast, Ixia and Skype are running on a variety of WiMAX technology vendor systems from companies including Alvarion, Proxim, Redline and Wavesat. The demos, which support the message that WiMAX is real, represent the five key
WiMAX application types: VoIP, streaming media, interactive gaming, Web browsing and file transfer/media download. The success of the demos indicates that WiMAX systems are efficient at running multiple classes of applications simultaneously.
As a leading sponsor of the event, Nortel is providing wired and wireless LAN connections and IP phones to attendees at the Vancouver event. Nortel also presented its findings on the business potential of 802.16e in a keynote speech on July 12. Nortel, a global telecommunications leader in wireless infrastructure and advanced 3G technologies, has been contributing to the 802.16 standard by helping to develop underlying technologies like OFDM and MIMO for more than six years. “Participating in the WiMAX Forum event in Vancouver is an ideal opportunity to share our knowledge and expertise of advanced wireless broadband technology with leading business organizations from across the globe,” said John Hoadley, vice president, next generation wireless access, Nortel. “The successful
demonstrations at the WiMAX Forum event further exemplify the strength and viability of this technology and its role in the future evolution of wireless broadband networks.”
Another leading event supporter, KT, presented a keynote speech concerning its vision for wireless broadband service and mobile WiMAX, known as “WiBRO” in Korea. KT, a leading service provider in Korea, has committed resources toward developing services and applications that will support mobile WiMAX/WiBRO implementations. Supporting mobility for wireless broadband is one of the key goals of the WiMAX Forum.
“KT is committed to the mobile future of WiMAX technology, not just in Korea, but all over the world,” said Dr. Hong, Won-Pyo of KT’s Mobile Internet Business Group. “The WiMAX Forum event in Vancouver gave us an ideal opportunity to offer our insight on the advances in mobile WiMAX and the business case for the technology, enabling us to drive greater understanding of the goals of mobile WiMAX and helping us to
increase interest in the success of the technology.”
Also at the meeting in Vancouver, the Yankee Group presented its report, “The Role of WiMAX in a World of Ubiquitous, Personal Broadband Services.” The report places WiMAX in the context of existing broadband and mobile trends and offers insight on WiMAX business models, WiMAX positioning and current and future challenges for WiMAX, while addressing those challenges and future application and deployment scenarios.
“Broadband wireless solutions like WiMAX will play a crit
