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The IEEE 802.20 committee has been dissolved. Long live 802.16!
WiMAX Blog Death by Vendor Politics or the Demise of 802.20 The IEEE 802.20 committee has voted itself out of existence, a victim of vendor politics? 802.20 WAS considered to be a broadband wireless standard that compete(d) with WiMAX.
The news last week was that the IEEE 802.20 committee dissolved itself. Speculation was that lead proponent vendor Qualcomm was adversely affecting the 802.20 committee when it was revealed the committee chair was on the Qualcomm payroll (see http://www.networkworld.com).
Apparently Qualcomm tried to hard to have its way with the committee. A couple of lessons for the wireless community from this story:
- WiMAX IS on the market thanks to the apparent "cooperation and graduation" on the part of the 802.16 committees. Speculating on follow on competing technologies who are NOT on the market will be a waste of time in the near term.
- Vendor committees that "cooperate and graduate" in getting their standard to market will win as the market is now better informed than it has been in the past.
- Service providers will reward those vendors who focus on standards rather than proprietary products with their business. IEEE 802.16 IS the standard(s) (fixed and mobile) for broadband wireless. Acknowledge and exploit!
Frank Ohrtman
WMX Systems
