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Joint "Hipe" for HiperMAN and 802.16

The important point is that if this organisation does achieve its goals, the industry will be spared the destructive in-fighting that occurred in wireless LAN technology, between the ETSI's HiperLAN standard, and the IEEE's 802.11a, both of which use the same unlicensed 5 GHz frequency.

WiMAX is a non-profit organisation aiming to do the same sort of job that the WiFi Alliance did for WLAN, but in this case, for the IEEE 802.16 and ETSI HiperMAN wireless broadband standards for last-mile access. The products will be operating in the 2 to 11 GHz bands.

These are mostly not licence-free spectrum standards, and so appeal to carriers who can apply for the franchise in an area.

Now, the body has published the list of new names: including Andrew Corporation, Atheros, China Motion Technologies, Compliance Certification Services, LCC International, News IQ, Powerwave Technologies, Redline Communications, RF Integration, RF Magic, SiWave, SiWorks, SR Telecom, Stratex Networks, TowerStream, TurboConcept, Wavesat Wireless and Winova Wireless.

These communications component and equipment manufacturers, operators, and industry consultancies join current members – Airspan Networks, Alvarion, Aperto Networks, Ensemble Communications, Fujitsu, Intel, OFDM Forum, Nokia, Proxim and Wi-LAN – to comprise the wireless broadband industry's standards interoperability and compliance organisation.

"As a result of WiMAX's leadership, operators worldwide will soon be able to build cost-effective wireless broadband networks on a wide scale to be on par with wireline broadband access technologies including cable modems and DSL," said the group's official announcement.

"The result is the ability to deliver broadband data, voice and video services to both residence and business customers, as well as serving as backhaul infrastructure for WiFi hotspots, and mobile cellular deployments worldwide."

Margaret LaBrecque, WiMAX president made the comparison with WiFi explicit: "Just as the WiFi Alliance achieved initial success by creating industry consensus around a common specification, WiMAX has proven with its expanding membership and progress designating initial system profiles that it is poised to drive the development of cost-effective, industry standards-based products."

Wireless market research firm Visant Strategies recently published a report projecting that the market for WiMAX equipment will exceed $1.6 billion by 2008.

"We see WiMAX playing a key role in the wide-scale proliferation of wireless broadband for the extension of hot spots, the deployment of outdoor and private networks, non-line-of-sight backhaul applications, and eventually as a migration path to 4G," said Andy Fuertes, Visant Strategies senior analyst.

"Not only does the standard's interoperability and compliance have significant implications for component and equipment vendors, but also this serves as the fuel for operators worldwide to deliver cost-effective broadband services to their residential and business customers," he said.

The body sees its main work as ensuring interoperability between IEEE 802.16 and ETSI HiperMAN-based products. It will initially focus its conformance and interoperability test procedures on equipment that supports the 256 OFDM physical layer, and operates in 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz licensed bands - and also the 5.8 GHz unlicensed band.

Interested in knowing more? WiMAX will continue its "education program" of the communications industry, at the WCAs 2003 Convention in Washington, DC, July 8-11.

Various senior Forum members will address the conference in a general session on Wednesday, July 9 and will conduct a half-day tutorial on Friday, July 11.

During the tutorial, WiMAX member companies will present on a variety of topics, including the progress on system profile development and interoperable testing, and how to become WiMAX certified. At that time, WiMAX will also address the differences between 802.16 and 802.11 standards and how these "last mile" network and "hot spots" are complementary.

More information about WCA's event is available at www.wcai.com.