There seems to be some discontent roiling in the ranks of the WiMAX Forum's membership. The large network equipment providers appear to have a hard time embracing the forum's vision for the first wave of fixed WiMAX gear, scheduled for deployment later this year. In fact, many of the larger vendors, while not discrediting the technology directly, have started shrugging it off as a mere backhaul solution — not exactly the image of the ultimate access alternative the forum is trying to portray.

For the most part, the large mobile infrastructure vendors are focusing their efforts on Mobile WiMAX technology, based on the 802.16e standard, while smaller broadband wireless vendors like Alvarion, Aperto and Airspan have taken up the cause of the current generation of fixed-wireless technologies with plans to develop mobile products in the future. At first, their aims for promoting overall WiMAX technology would seem identical. But from a marketing perspective the two camps may have reason to be at cross-purposes.

Mobile WiMAX will be a much more robust technology than fixed, providing not just full mobility as its name implies but also far greater capacity and far cheaper CPE equipment. But as the first commercial technology out of the gate, fixed WiMAX will determine the initial public perception of WiMAX in the marketplace. The last thing the Mobile WiMAX vendors want to see is WiMAX painted with broad strokes as a limited fixed technology or a mere DSL replacement solution.

So the large vendors may be motivated to pish-posh fixed wireless and refocus the discussion on the potential of future WiMAX technologies, but they certainly aren't helping promote WiMAX as a whole by doing so. The forum already took a public relations hit for abandoning plans for interoperability trials earlier this year without explanation. These vendors are enormously influential, and taking pot shots at the first generation of WiMAX technology will only serve to exacerbate any negative perception of WiMAX — exactly what they're trying to avoid.