Group Certifies First Wave of Fixed-Wireless WiMAX Devices
The WiMAX Forum said it certified the first fixed- wireless products to be used in wireless substitution for DSL and cable broadband. Certification is an important step in the commercial rollout of products using WiMAX technology. The forum put its seal on products from Aperto, Redline Communications, Sequans Communications and Wavesat, and dozens of other certification announcements are expected in coming weeks. The forum, meanwhile, is developing standards for mobile WiMAX, a significantly larger prospective market.
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“This is a major milestone. This is the first time we have an officially completed certification testing,” said Mo Shakouri, vp-Alvarion and a member of the WiMAX Forum board. The Forum, meanwhile, agreed to a standard for mobile WiMAX in Dec., he said. Certification testing is expected to start for mobile devices in late 2006 or early 2007.
Shakouri said with certification the price of devices that use the technology will tend to drop. Before standards, WiMAX devices cost $1,000; they're down to $500. “They're likely to drop below $300 very quickly,” he said. The first fixed applications have been largely in international markets and in the rural U.S., as a replacement for wires where DSL and cable modem service aren’t available.
Manish Gupta, vp-mktg. & alliances at Aperto, said his company has the first carrier-class base station certified, which required 70 tests starting in Aug. To pass, a base station must interconnect with CPEs from 2 other manufacturers. A CPE must work with base stations from 2 other equipment makers.
Gupta said achieving certification should give Aperto a major commercial advantage. “We have been in a number of operational trials and testing in countries around the world,” he said. “A certified product makes the service provider more comfortable… What that leads to is that executives that make major decisions for purchase are more willing to make decisions.”
Aperto sees a significant market in the developing world, especially, as counties like India and Indonesia launch major projects. The biggest project Aperto has supplied equipment to is expected to provide service to 100,000 customers. Gupta expects to see similarly large deployments elsewhere as well. “There has been so much confusion about certification, about the value of certification, that the customer gets confused,” he said. “All that will be set aside. Now that there are certified products the operators will say, ‘I want a certified product.'”
The first certified products are Aperto’s PacketMAX 5000 base station, Redline’s RedMAX AN-100U base station, Sequans’ SQN2010 base station solution and Wavesat’s miniMAX CPE solution.