Forum certifies first Mobile WiMAX products, but only for 2.3GHz

However, Wi-Bro has continued to be the main pacemaker for full WiMAX, and its specifications are largely the basis of the first wave of WiMAX Forum certification -a wave that many vendors are ignoring, claiming that most customers will demand wave two features, which include MIMO smart antenna arrays, as a minimum. So, while the Forum has been under intensifying pressure to end repeated delays to its certification and interoperability process and demonstrate that it can retain its headstart over the LTE standard, its announcement of the first officially approved Mobile WiMAX products last week remained highly Korean in focus. The first suppliers to gain certificates were Samsung, fellow Korean Posdata, plus two WiMAX chipmakers, Runcom and Sequans, both of which have worked with Samsung. In total, four base station and four subscriber unit modules were kitemarked, with the certificates awarded at the WiMAX Congress Asia in Singapore last week. Most of the testing was carried out by AT4 Wireless (formerly Cetecom) in Spain, and by the Telecommunications Technology Association's  IT Testing and Certification Lab in Korea.

WiMAX Forum president Ron Resnick said in a statement: "With the first group of Mobile WiMAX certified products now available, we have delivered on our promise to ensure that WiMAX products are interoperable and that operators have the certified equipment and devices to begin delivering mobile broadband services that consumers want. Stay tuned. We expect this momentum to continue throughout the year when the first products for the 2.5GHz frequency achieve certification in the coming months." The last sentence was the one the industry needed to hear - and the Forum needs to deliver on. Although major carriers like Sprint can push ahead with their WiMAX deployments, running their own interoperability testing and with a large measure of customized work from their eager suppliers, smaller operators do not have these resources or market clout - and lack of open interoperability certificates limit the choices of devices, a key factor in launching consumer services, even for tier one carriers, a factor that weighed heavily on early 3G providers in Europe at the start of the decade. With the LTE community, for now at least, speeding up its efforts at full standardization and the start of certification, further delays by the Forum in mainstream profiles will add weight to Ericsson's argument that WiMAX is no longer needed for mobile broadband and should be confined to fixed DSL substitution.

Products for 2.3GHz currently have limited relevance outside Korea and a few other markets, certainly compared to the major WiMAX bands, 2.5GHz and 3.5GHz. Although more 2.3GHz spectrum will become available, notably in India, currently the focus on this profile robs the Forum's long awaited initial certifications of their sting, and adds weight to the demands by many vendors that it should accelerate the move to wave two testing in 2.5GHz, where most suppliers will be participating. The US-focused Wireless Communications Association (WCA), which represents the broadband wireless sector, highlighted the frustration with the resources allocated to the Korean band, writing a letter to the US regulator, the FCC, in which it said the certification of 2.3GHz products was "meaningless" for US consumers. This is because, even in countries with extensive allocations of 2.3GHz spectrum, and support for WiMAX within that, there are often rules that restrict its usefulness. This is particularly true in the US, as the WCA pointed out, because out of band emission limits are far more restrictive than those imposed elsewhere - largely because the broadband wireless portions of the band are split into two sections, with the satellite radio spectrum running down the middle, raising acute interference concerns among the radio operators.

The WCA - which believes the spectral efficiency and anti-interference mechanisms inherent in Mobile WiMAX should allow for more liberal rules in the band - said in its letter that, as a result of FCC policies, the newly certified devices are useless in the US as they "do not meet the Commission's unique spectral mask". The Association urged the regulator to adopt the rules suggested by the WCS Coalition (which WCA leads) to permit both satellite and wireless operators to offer viable services to the public in the 2.3GHz band. 

The Forum says "dozens" of products are registered for Mobile WiMAX certification in 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz frequencies and more than 100 products are expected to be certified by the end of 2008, a number rising to over 1,000 by 2011, by which time 3.5GHz will also be included.

The organization also said the current network of six testing labs in China, Korea, Spain, the US and two in Taiwan will expand to eight by the end of this year, with additions in India and Japan, and another will be added in Brazil in 2009.

The products certified are:

• USB modems and base station devices from Posdata.
• The RNU200CPE Mobile WiMAX UT, based on the RNA200ASIC and the RNU2000N Mobile WiMAX Standalone Base Station Unit from Runcom.
• A Mobile WiMAX base station and PCMCIA card from Samsung.
• Two ASIC-based reference designs from Sequans, the SQN1110 for subscriber devices and the SQN2130 for base stations.

The WiMAX Forum projects there will be more than 133m WiMAX users globally by 2012 and that approximately 70% of these will use mobile and portable WiMAX devices to access broadband internet services.

2.3GHz in India

Elsewhere in the world, India's Department of Telecomis preparing to auction spectrum for broadband wireless access in both the 2.5GHz and 2.3GHz bands. The latest twist in its lengthy rulemaking process is that the DoT has decided that all existing unified, mobile, basic and internet licensees can bid for these licenses. New prospective service providers can also bid but they will have to obtain either a unified or ISP license if they succeed in gaining licenses. Each operator can bid for up to 20MHz of spectrum in blocks of 5MHz each and successful providers will be allowed to use any ITU-approved technology.  There is a total of 80MHz available in the two bands.

India will also auction 3G spectrum this year, with a view to encouraging operators, or partnerships, to come up with innovative parallel 3G/4G combinations of services and tariffs, to improve the economics of delivering next generation services across the country and set the framework for India to leapfrog other parts of the world in 4G-class applications, and finally achieve an infrastructure that is adequate for its massive economy and its growing mobile population.