The Open Base Station Architecture Initiative, the international wireless industry group pursuing open air interfaces for base station equipment, said today its membership ranks had reached 130 companies. The group said that new membership has surged in recent months from the community of WiMAX companies that want to ensure the WiMAX is included in the OBSAI specifications.

OBSAI Chairperson Tero Mustala said in a statement, "A chief benefit of the OBSAI open interface specifications is that they have been devised to go beyond existing technologies so that they are virtually future proof. Evolving technologies, like WiMAX and other future technologies, can be successfully integrated into these specifications. We expect to have WiMAX fully integrated into the full range of OBSAI specifications by the first half of this year."

OBSAI began in 2002 with just three member companies. Now, about one-third of its 130 members work with WiMAX technology. The group has produced a range of open internal interface specifications for base station architecture and module specifications covering the areas of transport, control, baseband and radio. First version specifications can be downloaded from the public Web site at www.obsai.org.