WiMAX makes case in Asia

SINGAPORE — Some of the first Mobile WiMAX products began emerging at CommunicAsia this year as vendors began preparing for the first wave of certification for the recently finalized specification.

The WiMAX Forum's labs are expected to begin tests on the first IEEE 802.16e equipment later this year, lending the final certification stamp to the technology. But some of the same marketing gamesmanship that surrounded Fixed WiMAX is starting to appear surrounding its higher-capacity mobile successor. Companies are already releasing gear they have dubbed WiMAX, though neither base stations nor customer premises equipment (CPE) have yet to enter the forum's labs in Europe or Asia.

And countries like South Korea, which are anxious to move forward with deployments, have set their own specification profiles for the technology in order to launch services. But the transgressions this time around seem to be far less severe. Vendors appear to be cooperating closely to ensure they meet the final spec and interoperability requirements closely.

“We're very confident we'll get certification,” said Hwan Woo Chung, Samsung Mobile WiMAX Group vice president, during an interview at Samsung's WiMAX-bedecked booth. Then he added, half-jokingly: “If we don't, our customers get their money back.”

Samsung has dropped the WiBro moniker attached to Korea's 802.16e specification and officially moved its product into a spec profile laid out by the WiMAX Forum. Whether it's called WiBro or WiMAX, Samsung is well ahead of any other vendor, with commercial trials ongoing in Seoul and plans for a citywide expansion. Samsung also conducted successful tests of its equipment at the Winter Olympics in Turino, Italy, and has an ongoing trial with Sprint in the U.S. At CommunicAsia, Samsung was exhibiting its first WiMAX handsets, while most vendors have released portable external CPEs.

Chung estimated that Samsung is nine months to a year ahead of the other WiMAX vendors, but whether it can use that lead to get a big edge on the competition is up in the air. Chung said Samsung definitely has a development and technological lead, but it may have to wait for the rest of the WiMAX community to catch up before it can land any major deals. The mass-market nature of WiMAX will require a proliferation of terminals, CPEs and base stations from different vendors, he said.

“In this marketplace, Samsung cannot alone survive,” Chung said. “Big operators want to have multiple vendors. Until then, we will develop the WiMAX market as much as possible while waiting for our competition.”

While Samsung has been developing its products for dense urban centers and fully mobile deployments, other vendors have been targeting other WiMAX deployment scenarios. Soma Networks and Sanyo Electric announced commercial availability of a base station and CPE line aimed at high-capacity fixed wireless deployments, using a Soma-developed header compression technology for greater efficiency in voice-over-IP applications.

The additional capacity and quality of service of Mobile WiMAX are appealing to carriers looking for a last-mile broadband and voice solution, said Greg Caltabiano, Soma president and chief operating officer. “We believe in multiple applications and large cell radius,” he said. “Deployment costs drop substantially if you can double the cell radius of a network.”

Meanwhile Adaptix has come out of hiding to tap into WiMAX, porting its proprietary mobile orthogonal frequency division multiple access technology into a micro base station targeted at certification. Instead of focusing on broad-scale cell sector deployments, Adaptix has created a solution that targets specific deployment scenarios such as covering a train corridor or solving the issue of street to rooftop coverage with a single WiMAX base station.