WiMAX Forum plans Beijing plugfest; KT joins board

BOSTON--The WiMax Forum announced at the WiMAX World Conference here that it has scheduled its second interoperability plugfest of WiMAX equipment for next week in Beijing, China. The event will run from Oct. 30 to Nov. 6, and will include 14 different WiMAX chip and gear vendors, and test companies.

Mo Shakouri, vice president of marketing for the WiMAX Forum, said the interoperability showcase is an important step in the certification process for WiMAX equipment based on the 802.16-2004 standard. Certification testing is currently going in at Cetecom in Malaga, Spain.

In related news, the forum announced that Korean telco KT is joining the WiMAX Forum board of directors. This news is significant because KT is planning to launch its WiBro-based Wonder-Net Service in Seoul next year. That launch will help answer some of the mounting hype surrounding WiMAX with an actual commercial service. The Korean WiBro standard is being harmonized with the 802.16e Mobile WiMAX standard, for which the forum is already working on developing certification profiles.

Jon-Seog Koh, vice president of the network-planning department in KT's Mobile Internet Business Group, said he believes those standards "are already 90% harmonized," and that WiBro eventually will be software-upgradable to Mobile WiMAX. KT hopes to have 3.1 million WiBro customers by 2010, he said.