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Wimax breakthrough: testing signals "last push"?

Much of what has been written about WiMAX in the last four years has been "optimistic", but the release of official test gear for WiMAX equipment marks a breakthrough into reality for the wireless technology.

As reported in the Spirent press release today, the test-gear company has, at last, acknowledged the existence of a real market for interoperable WiMAX equipment, by announcing Landslide - its range of hardware and software for measuring whether it works properly.

This is seen, by rival technology providers, as the last chance for WiMAX to make it as a serious 3.5G wireless technology. "We can expect Intel, which orchestrates WiMAX, to give it a last push," commented one wireless maker. "If it isn't selling well, globally, by 2009/2010 then Intel will probably abandon the struggle."

"The deployment of successful WiMAX networks depends not only on addressing issues related to network capacity and interoperability," says today's announcement, "but [also on] validating the performance of network equipment."

It goes on to point out that without such abilities, equipment manufacturers and carriers do not have "the ability to deliver reliable next-generation wireless broadband networks and services."

Wireless watchers told NewsWireless that the Spirent announcement would signal the floodgates for a range of industry announcements.

"Before there are any Spirent test devices for something, no wireless technology can honestly be said to exist," summarised one supplier of conventional 3G equipment. "When Spirent announced WCDMA test gear, that signalled the take-off of 3G UMTS networks - before that, it was mostly laboratory research."

Full press release about the Landslide range here

For more information please visit http://www.spirentcom.com/product_finder/index.cfm#Landslide