14 DAY TRIAL // The first certification for mobile-centric products operating in the 2.5GHz range has been issued by the WiMax Forum on Tuesday. Also, some 3.5GHz products are announced for certification later this year, along with the plan to have about 1,000 products certified by 2011.
[admark=1]The WiMax Forum announced on Tuesday that ten mobile WiMax products have been given the "WiMax Forum Certified Seal of Approval". The certification went to products including four base stations from Alvarion, Samsung and Motorola, as well as some mobile modules coming from Samsung, Intel, Beceem, ZyXEL and Airspan.
The organization said that more that 100 mobile WiMax products would also receive the certification by the end of the year and that there would probably be more than 1,000 products certified by 2011. The range of products also includes those machines developed to work at a 3.5GHz frequency, which will begin to receive the WiMax Forum certification starting with the third quarter of the year. The organization seems optimistic about its actions and announced its plans to complete the certification of 3.5GHz products before this year's end.
"We are setting an industry precedent by conducting certification in a way that has never been done before," WiMax Forum president Ron Resnick said. "To ensure interoperability for global operators and consumers, the WiMax Forum supports the end-to-end certification process, from equipment development to test equipment validation (to), finally, product certification. The WiMax Forum is the only consortium to certify base station equipment, which is key to ensure true network interoperability and a high quality of service among user devices and network equipment."
The announcements made by the Forum on Tuesday may get on their way towards bolstering the lead of mobile WiMax over its main competitor, the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) of 3G. NXP announced last week that it would have an LTE-compatible modem available for the interoperability testings during the first half of the following year, even if LTE has not been standardized yet.
Clearwire and Sprint's WiMax network in the United States should allow the usage of the 2.5GHz products. As for the United Kingdom, the chances of the mobile WiMax depend a lot on the results of an auction that will be held by telecommunications regulator Ofcom in the same spectrum sometime close to the end of this summer.