A group of leading silicon suppliers, equipment makers and research organizations announced yesterday a new initiative to accelerate the interoperability of the next release of the WiMAX standard, WiMAX 2.
WiMAX 2 is formally known as IEEE 802.16m, and it is designed to succeed the existing iteration of WiMAX (802.16e), while retaining backwards compatibility with the current standard. The newer version of the 802.16 standard adds new capabilities, higher system capacity, peak rates exceeding 300Mbps, lower latency and improved VoIP capacity. The performance gains are designed to keep up with the ever increasing demand for mobile multimedia applications and their broadband requirements.
Companies involved in the new WiMAX Collaboration Initiative include industry luminaries like Intel, Motorola, Samsung and Alvarion. These companies hope to collaborate on technology and performance benchmarks, evaluation of 4G applications on WiMAX 2 solutions, interoperability and eventual blessing from the WiMAX Forum.
“The WiMAX industry is seeing a non-linear shift in mobile broadband usage models – similar in magnitude to that experienced when people went from dial-up to broadband. Consumers on some WiMAX networks are consuming 7-10 GB of data per month,” the WCI said in a statement. “WiMAX 1 ushered in a new, open model for high speed, wireless Internet and WiMAX 2 will keep pushing the envelope to help operators keep up with insatiable demand.”
The 802.16m WiMAX 2 standard is expected to be completed in the second half of this year, with standard approval and certified products expected to follow in 2011.
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