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The WiMAX Forum Announces some Wave 1 Certifications
The WiMAX Forum announced the first Wave 1 Certifications this past week, but none of these are what Sprint will use.
As reported in Telecoms.com this past week the WiMAX Forum has achieved Wave 1 certification for its first slate of products.
The downside for the US market is that Sprint intends to use Wave 2
products, which the Forum says will be ready by the third quarter of
this year. What is the difference? Wave 2 certification offers support
for smart antenna systems like multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO)
technology which Sprint wants for its systems.
But there is plenty to be happy about for the Forum as this is clearly
a milestone for it. Also, it addresses the needs of the WiBro faction
of the Forum, headed up by Korea Telecom which uses Wave 1 gear in the
2.3 GHz range in Korea.
The Forum's Wave 2 testing slate is scheduled to start immediately and
the Forum reports that 19 companies have submitted products for this
testing phase. The Forum will start with 2.5 GHz testing for this group
of companies and intends to add mobile WiMAX testing for the 3.5 GHz
bands in August.
The Forum currently maintains testing labs in the US, Spain Taiwan,
Korea and plans to add a second one in Taiwan to go with new labs in
Japan, India and Brazil. The Forum intends to have more than 1,000
devices tested by the end of 2011.
The WiMAX Forum touts its more than 260 commercial deployments in 110
countries coupled with 62 silicon vendors and 37 infrastructure vendors
as proof of the health of its ecosystem.
Tim Sanders
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