Alvarion joins the 3.65 GHz WiMAX race

Equipment vendor gains FCC certification to sell and ship radios in U.S. light-licensed band.

Alvarion announced that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had granted certification to the company's BreezeMAX 3650 base station and customer premise equipment (CPE) for use in the 3.65 GHz frequency band. U.S. rules mandate that all intentional radio emitting devices pass FCC tests before they can be offered for sale. Alvarion joins Redline Communications and Airspan Networks as the three vendors offering 3.65 GHz broadband wireless equipment.

Towerstream, a wireless service provider offering business-to-business broadband, is using the BreezeMAX 3650 products in a commercial trial. "Towerstream's business model is built around WiMAX to serve high value commercial customers in major urban markets around the country," said Jeff Thompson, CEO of Towerstream. Access to the 3.65 GHz band enables additional spectrum to deploy services that may not have been readily available in the past.

Licenses are required to operate radios in the recently allocated band. Unlike the auction process used for the sale of U.S. 700 MHz spectrum in January, 3.65 GHz uses a light-licensed allocation. Entities that plan to operate equipment apply to the FCC for a license and pay a nominal fee. Several wireless service providers have regional and nationwide licenses.

The BreezeMAX 3650 is based on the IEEE 802.16e-2005 specification, commonly referred to as mobile WiMAX. The product family supports self-install CPE and advanced antenna technologies including MIMO. Alvarion derived the models from its popular 3.5 GHz BreezeMAX design. Certification by WiMAX Forum for the 3.65 GHz frequency band is not expected before 2009. Currently, the industry trade association is certifying conformance and interoperability in the 2.3 and 2.5 GHz frequency bands. A 3.5 GHz certification profile exists, though considered a lower priority to the 2.x GHz opportunities. No timeline for establishing a 3.65 GHz certification effort has been announced, which means U.S. providers and enterprises considering use of the band should consider each vendor's solution proprietary.


By Jeff Orr

ORR Technology, LLC

Thursday, April 24, 2008 in Equipment  | Permalink |  Comments (0)