Redline enters U.S. WiMAX market at 3.65 GHz

Redline Communications said today it is the first WiMAX vendor to receive FCC certification for its equipment in the newly opened 3.65 GHz bands. The certification marks Redline’s entrance into the competitive U.S. market as a WiMAX vendor.

The kit, the RedMax AN-100U WiMAX base station, is a fixed WiMAX base station based on the IEEE 802.16d standard, which doesn’t have the mobility characteristics of its 802.16e cousin. Redline, however, said that all of its portfolio built for the global 3.5 GHz band will migrate easily to 3.65 GHz, creating an opportunity for it and numerous other vendors with no U.S. WiMAX play to enter the market. Whether the mobile WiMAX products take off at that band is still an open question, however. The semi-licensed status of the 3.65 GHz band may make true mobility in the bands difficult due to interference issues.

The FCC opened up the 3.65 GHz band to WiMAX in a June order, establishing not only new spectrum for the technology in the U.S. but creating the possibility of spectrum harmonization with the rest of the world, which largely uses 3.5 GHz for WiMAX. The band has 50 MHz of spectrum, but they won’t be issued as exclusive licenses. Like the unlicensed bands that fixed broadband wireless gear currently runs on, 3.65 GHz is open to any comer. However, the FCC based some restrictions on the bottom 25 MHz of the band, requiring any operator to register its base stations and pay a licensing fee. In exchange, the FCC exempted WiMAX from the contention protocol requirement for that bottom half of the band, meaning WiMAX is allowed to interfere with other technologies such as Wi-Fi in those frequencies.

The industry is still split on whether mobile WiMAX can be deployed at unlicensed frequencies where mobility creates an interference problem not seen in a point-to-multipoint fixed deployment. The 3.65 GHz bands are optimal for fixed WiMAX launches, though, and what’s more, the equipment is already there. Vendors need only have it certified before the FCC.

In June, Airspan announced its intention to release its HyperMax base station and WiMAX customer premise equipment in the band. In addition to pursuing launches in the lower 3.65 GHz band, Airspan also is creating a contention protocol that could allow its gear in the unrestricted half.

Redline's gear is only supporting deployments in the lower half, but it is first out of the gate in this greenfield market. It has already launched its gear with two operators, Towerstream and PDQLink, using trial licenses granted by the FCC. Towerstream and PDQ can now roll out the equipment commercially if they choose, and other operators will have access to the portfolio, Redline officials said.

While Redline has not sold WiMAX equipment in the U.S., it has several contracts for its proprietary broadband wireless gear, including Midwest Wireless, PDQ, Towerstream and the U.S. government.