2008 Event
WiMAX Forum Preps for Growth
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February 12, 2008 - WirelessWeek
By Rhonda Wickham
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The WiMAX Forum is busy and expects to get busier in the next couple of years. That was the message from its luncheon at the 2008 GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Since late last year when the forum began accepting applications, the WiMAX Forum has received 28 Mobile WiMAX products in the 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz frequency bands. Besides those frequency bands, the forum also plans to expand its product development roadmap for Mobile WiMAX certification in the 700 MHz frequency band.
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"With more than 260 commercial WiMAX deployments rolled out on a global basis, WiMAX technology is the only commercially available OFDMA-based wireless technology today to support the rapid expansion of mobile broadband Internet access and the broad proliferation of the open Internet concept that so many mobile service providers are talking about here this week," said Ron Resnick, president of the WiMAX Forum.
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The first Mobile WiMAX products are expected to receive the forum's seal of approval in Q2 2008 and to reach the market later this year. The forum forecasts that more than 950 products will undergo Mobile WiMAX certification testing by 2011, representing an influx of new consumer devices and infrastructure equipment to support continued rapid WiMAX user adoption in the 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz frequency bands.
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The forum currently has a network of six labs - China, Korea, Spain, the United States and two in Taiwan. It will add three more facilities in Brazil, India and Japan to handle the anticipated certification demand.
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