Mobile WiMAX or 802.16e standard was ratified by the IEEE in late 2005 as a potential to emerge as a real viable competitor to existing 3G technologies.  This potential gained traction when South Korea elected to take a mobile WiMAX compatible standard called wireless broadband (WiBro - since renamed to Mobile WiMAX) to market.  This standard however, was based on a different formulation of OFDM than that chosen for the first product profile of 802.16-2004.  The 802.16-2004 standards support both formulations---however, the OFDM 256FFT system was chosen for 802.16-2004. 

WiBro/Mobile WiMAX uses an OFDMA™ technology called 1K-FFT.  Service for the WiBro/Mobile WiMAX standard is in the 2.3 GHz spectrum range at least in Korea.  The technology can be easily adapted to other licensed spectrum.  At this point it is anticipated that the WiBro/Mobile WiMAXWiBro/Mobile WiMAX will not be used for unlicensed bands.  The Forum has already announced support for the WiBro/Mobile WiMAX standard.  For a variety of other reasons the Forum seems to favor using the scalable OFDMA approach, which allows a flexible FFT that incorporates WiBro/Mobile. 

Many members believe this approach is more spectrally efficient in general than 802.16-2004.  However, this did create a bit of a quandary in regards to Fixed WiMAX.  Since 802.16-2004 uses a different product profile the two standards products will not interoperate.  This has forced Forum members to decide whether to support both product lines, update their existing products through the 802.16-2004 path or maintain existing proprietary tech and move toward adopting Mobile WiMAX as a separate product line.  As things stand today, the Mobile WiMAX technology appears to be the clear winner amongst standards and will be used for both mobile purposes and adapted to fixed iterations as necessary.  The next version of WiMAX 802.11m will incorporate even more mobile capabilities, bandwidth capacity and technology changes to improve mobile capability.