December 21, 2009

112 New WiMAX Deployments Added Globally

According to Informa Telecoms & Media, wireless broadband Internet deployments based upon WiMAX have reached 519 in 146 countries, including 95 WiMAX networks deployed by 2G mobile operators. Of the 519 WiMAX deployments, 112 were added in 2009. The WiMAX ecosystem advanced certification activity with 86 products receiving WiMAX Forum Certified status this year.

On the regulatory front, more than 50 companies endorsed the IEEE 802.16m IMT-Advanced candidate proposal for a future-proof roadmap. To support IMT-Advanced and the WiMAX Forum evolution of its technology roadmap, leading suppliers and operators this year expressed their commitment to build and trial WiMAX Release 2 based on the IEEE 802.16m standard.

These ecosystem backers included Alvarion, Beceem, Cisco, Clearwire, Huawei, Intel, KT, Motorola, Samsung, Sequans, UQC, Yota and ZTE.

The WiMAX Forum also announced that in 2010 it will finalize its WiMAX Release 2 specification in parallel with IEEE 802.16m and IMT-Advanced, ensuring that WiMAX Release 2 networks and devices will remain backward compatible with legacy WiMAX Release 1 based on IEEE 802.16e.