what’s the word on wimax?

The timing of that announcement may have been prompted, at least in part, by reports in Information Week and Telephony magazines a week earlier saying that there would be a delay in the testing, certification and commercial availability of WiMAX products. Those stories also were picked up by various consulting firms, including ABI Research and Ovum, adding more fuel to the fire.

The WiMAX Forum took umbrage with those reports, saying mid-2005 had long been the expected date for WiMAX product certification to begin. “Put simply, to characterize certification as ‘delayed’ is inaccurate,” says Kendra Petrone, Edelman’s public relations contact for the WiMAX Forum. “For the past nine months, the WiMAX Forum has targeted mid-2005 to begin certification, and they are on track to do just that.”

The WiMAX Forum in late January announced its selection of Cetecom Spain as its official certification laboratory, which will test and certify WiMAX Forum member companies’ products. Cetecom will test products to see if they conform to WiMAX profiles and the IEEE 802.16-2004 and ETSI HiperMAN standards and are interoperable with other WiMAX Forum Certified equipment.

Cetecom was chosen for its extensive range of testing and compliance services, which includes experience in wireless technologies such as GSM/GPRS, EDGE, W-CDMA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, according to the forum. While Cetecom has affiliate regional labs that will allow WiMAX Forum members worldwide to access the testing facilities easily, the plan is to do initial testing at the headquarters location in Malagar, Spain, “to get processes working,” says Mohammad Shakouri, vice president and board member for the WiMAX Forum, and vice president of business development at broadband wireless equipment vendor Alvarion Inc.

The initial work at Cetecom will focus on the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard for stationary WiMAX. But the same Cetecom labs that work on 802.16-2004 also will be used for 802.16e certification, says Shakouri.

The IEEE is expected to finalize work on the 802.16e standard, which addresses mobile WiMAX, in the third quarter of this year. In parallel with the IEEE’s work, the WiMAX Forum is working with its members and operators to identify their requirements relative to 802.16e, says Shakouri. According to Shakouri, the forum at this time is targeting the second half of 2006 as the expected launch of certification testing for 802.16e.

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines