October 1, 2008: There are now 67 WiMAX Forum certified products

During the first keynote of WiMAX World in Chicago this morning WiMAX Forum President and Chairman Ron Resnick re-asserted the Forum's commitment to have 100 WiMAX products certified by the end of this year and estimated that more than 1,000 would be certified by 2011. Resnick did not announce how many WiMAX products were currently certified, but during this morning's breakfast keynote, Motorola's Senior Vice President of Cellular Networks and WiMAX Fred Wright announced that 63 certified products were currently on the market. The Forum announced an additional crop of certified products this morning and according to their database over at wimaxforum.org there are currently 67 certified products. Only 33 to go for 2008. Resnick also announced a couple of other key metrics:

• There have been 407 deployments of WiMAX networks in 133 countries to date
• About 80 device makers have developed some 480 WiMAX devices
• Some 140 countries have issued 1,700 spectrum licenses

Later in the morning Yankee Group Chief Strategy Officer and WiMAX World Chairman Berge Ayvazian sat  down with Ben Wolff, CEO and Director of Clearwire for a fireside chat. Wolff played coy on questions about the new Clearwire, since Sprint and Clearwire are still waiting for that merger to go through. Wolff did make a few predictions: He said he expected Clearwire to have coverage over 16 million pops by early next year and about 140 million pops by the end of 2009. Wolff also noted that about two-thirds of Clearwire's customers are switching from cable companies and some 20 percent keep their wireline service even after they sign up for Clearwire's wireless  broadband.

Ayvazian also sat down with key executives from four WiMAX network operators: TATA, Clearwire, DigitalBridge and WiMAX Telecom for an executive roundtable. Ayvazian summed the panel up for WiMAX Trends following the session: "From emerging markets to the most developed--from the underserved to the highly competitive--WiMAX is able to find the sweet spot in any market. We have the operators with the experience necessary to make the WiMAX a success."