Voting unanimously, the IEEE 802.20 Working Group on Mobile Broad...

the group’s voting system to one vote for each entity participants are affiliated with. The group once had a one-person, one-vote system. The change is the latest in a series of IEEE actions since a 200y inquiry into the working group’s “lack of transparency, possible dominance, and other irregularities,” IEEE said. The working group “has made significant progress after being reorganized in September 2006 to ensure a clearly neutral leadership,” said Paul Nikolich, IEEE 802 committee chair. Assessing the working group, the IEEE Standards Board found that one company or a group of companies dominated the process, an IEEE spokeswoman said. The board didn’t issue a finding on which company was dominant because that wasn’t necessary, she said. “Concerns about dominance have continued, however,” he said. “While work on the standard has continued to move forward since the reorganization, this change in voting approach will put the IEEE 802.20 Working Group in a better position to move forward quickly in a fair, open and consistent manner.” The group is creating an air-interface standard to deliver voice, video and data services to portable computers and other mobile devices at wired broadband levels. The standard will raise data rates in wireless metropolitan area networks to 1 Mbps or more, at a range of at least 15 km from a base station for users traveling up to 250 km an hour, IEEE said. “The initial draft has evolved considerably and now has broader consensus support than the original,” said working group chair Arnie Greenspan. A revised draft of the standard will be ready for formal ballot “in the near future,” he said.