Wireless standards groups merge

The Mobile Wireless Internet Forum this week announced it would merge its membership with the Open Mobile Alliance, creating one large wireless standards advocacy group focused interoperability and promoting mobile data use.

Both of the groups have increasingly seen their missions overlap in the last few years, nullifying the need for two separate organizations, said John Waclawsky, Technical Committee Chair for MWIF and a member of Cisco’s senior technical staff. Waclawsky added that the MWIF decided the best course was to bring MWIF under OMA’s wing as the larger organization has the larger focus of promoting standards for all wireless applications, not just data applications.

Founded by the major global wireless carriers in early 2000, MWIF has worked on infrastructure standards for new wireless data networks being developed. As the core technology reached maturity, however, MWIF shifted its focus to wireless data applications, overlapping the OMA’s goals, Waclawsky said.--Kevin Fitchard, staff writer