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Analysis, WiMAX, Broadband, Wireless, Global: Twenty-one companies involved in the development of WiMAX recently met to show just how interoperable their products and services can be - and how valuable and useful WiMAX is bound to become in the emerging markets. Michael Schwartz brings Developing Telecoms up to date with this recent demonstration.
WiMAX prepares to serve the emerging markets 
High-level optimism is currently underpinning WiMAX: WiMAX technology will be incorporated in notebook computers and PDAs by 2007, allowing urban areas and cities to become “metro zones” for portable outdoor broadband wireless access. It is as well, however, to start this review with a brief summary of what WiMAX is, what it is capable of achieving, and how the industry-led WiMAX Forum has encouraged compatibility among manufacturers. WiMAX is a standards-based technology. It brings to its users wireless broadband access in the crucial last mile, thereby by definition offering an alternative to wired technologies such as cable and DSL. What is more, WiMAX provides fixed, nomadic, portable and, very soon, mobile wireless broadband connectivity without the need for direct line-of-sight with a base station. The WiMAX Forum cites a typical cell radius deployment of 3km-10km within which the systems it is currently certifying can deliver capacity of up to 40Mb/s per channel, both for fixed and portable access applications. This bandwidth can simultaneously support hundreds of businesses with T-1 speed connectivity and thousands of residences with DSL speed connectivity. To encourage not only the technological exploitation of WiMAX capacity but also to bring about standardisation, the WiMAX Forum was created five years ago. It is an industry-led, non-profit corporation formed to promote and certify compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products. Member companies industry-wide accept the IEEE 802.16 and ETSI HiperMAN wireless MAN standards. In return the WiMAX Forum works to promote global WiMAX deployments and to make WiMAX the platform of choice for broadband wireless. Aims and aspirations The WiMAX Forum has set itself a number of key objectives on which it is currently working. Most obviously they include promoting and accelerating global WiMAX deployments, and making WiMAX the platform of choice and the worldwide market segment leader for broadband wireless. This is intended to take place within a framework for high-performance end-to-end IP network architecture that will support fixed, portable, and mobile users. In the field of plain commercialism, WiMAX Forum aims to increase user demand by enabling competitive new applications and service models. In addition, by leveraging the contributions of the majority of players within the ecosystem, the Forum hopes it will deliver the framework for deployment of personal broadband on a global scale. Naturally customer confidence plays its part, as WiMAX Forum members’ products must be trusted by service providers. WiMAX Forum Certified The WiMAX Forum states that it is the only organisation bringing compliance and interoperability to the wireless broadband industry with its testing and certification programme, WiMAX Forum Certified. Before WiMAX Forum Certified systems were available, every solution was customised and not interoperable. Nowadays, by contrast, the Forum is keen to stress that every piece of WiMAX Forum Certified equipment based on a common profile is interoperable with other WiMAX Forum Certified equipment. Among other claims by the WiMAX Forum, WiMAX Forum Certified means firstly that a service provider can buy equipment from more than one company and be confident that everything works together, and also that the WiMAX Forum Certified concept means a more competitive industry, lower costs, and faster growth for broadband wireless everywhere around the globe. Showcasing the interoperability policy Last month the WiMAX Forum organised its first PlugFest. This event provided mobile WiMAX equipment suppliers with an open environment in which to test compatibility and interoperability of equipment in preparation for certification. Twenty-one members of the equipment development and operator communities came together for an interoperability showcase hosted by Bechtel Telecommunications at its Training, Demonstration and Research (TDR) Laboratory in Frederick, Maryland. The participating companies were: Adaptix, Airspan, Alcatel, Altair Semiconductor, Alvarion, Beceem Communications, CETECOM-Aeroflex, Intel, M/A-Com, Motorola, Navini Networks, picoChip, POSDATA, Runcom, Samsung, SEQUANS Communications, SOMA Networks and TTA Labs, as well as test equipment vendors CETECOM, Invenova, and Rohde and Schwarz. In fact, the WiMAX Forum received a number of mobile equipment manufacturers requesting to participate in a PlugFest that it has also announced an additional PlugFest for later this month (October 20-24) at the CETECOM testing facility in Malaga, Spain. This PlugFest will focus on incremental service interoperability tests for WiMAX products designed for fixed and stationary applications. Mobile certification testing is scheduled to begin towards the end of this year, with market availability of WiMAX Forum Certified mobile products beginning in early 2007. WiMAX Forum membership is approaching 400 companies acting in concert to develop, produce, certify, and deliver quality products. Where part can WiMAX play in the new markets? WiMAX applications in the developing markets have been reported quite frequently. Each deployment is unique not just in the configuration selected by the WiMAX client for a specific function but also in the role that the deployment can play in local telecoms. For example, some WiMAX applications are at national level, well up with a country’s most important developments to date. Pakistan’s Wateen Telecoms is a case in point, as it is set to roll out the country’s largest such network so far. Other contracts are drawn up so that WiMAX can gain a foothold in a country with a very large population. India and Russia are two markets lining up for WiMAX. Telecoms poses its own specialised challenges when remote locations are involved. Enter the most cut-off areas of Brazil, where WiMAX has been identified as a means of delivering tele-medicine. Of course, it should never be forgotten that WiMAX is there to make money - reversing Average Revenue Per User decline is one such reason for implementation, duly identified in a Maravedis report. All in all, WiMAX is at this time receiving ever-more frequent endorsement from telecoms players. More info: This article has been researched from a wide range of sources. For readers seeking more background information some areas to consult are: |
Date: 11-12 September 2008