WiMAX Forum certifies the first WiMAX gear to target any market besides Korea

Motorola and Samsung can now apply the WiMAX logo to the networks they’re building for Sprint and Clearwire in Baltimore, Chicago, Portland and Washington, D.C. The WiMAX Forum today officially released the names of the first WiMAX base stations and subscriber modules to pass certification muster, marking the first time that fully standardized Mobile WiMAX products have been available to the global marketplace.

The first wave of Mobile WiMAX products technically emerged in April when the Forum finished compliance and interoperability on the so-called WiMAX Wave 1 products. That gear, however, was targeted solely at Korea to support Korea Telecom’s launch of WiBro. The network uses spectrum and odd channel sizes unique to the Korean market, and the certification was mainly intended to allow KT to officially call WiBro WiMAX. Today’s announcement, however, centers on the Wave 2 profile of WiMAX at 2.5 GHz, spectrum held by dozens of operators around the world—most notably Sprint and Clearwire—and targeted by all of the world’s WiMAX equipment vendors.

Alvarion, Motorola, Samsung, and Sequans Communications all received certification for their 2.5 GHz time division duplexing (TDD), multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) base stations. Of the three, only Sequans has yet to deploy its gear with a U.S. 2.5 GHz carrier, though its 2.5 GHz baseband chipset is being used in similar deployments globally. On the customer premise equipment side, Airspan Networks, Beceem Communications, Intel, Samsung, Sequans and ZyCel all were awarded the WiMAX stamp for their subscriber modules.

Though numerous vendors working in WiMAX such as Aperto Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel and ZTE were not on the list, the most notable absentees are perhaps Nokia Siemens Networks and partial parent Nokia. Both are working closely with Sprint on its WiMAX deployment, NSN deploying its Flexi base station in several Texas markets and Nokia supplying the first stand-alone WiMAX handheld, an enhanced version of its N810 Internet Tablet. Why NSN’s base station wasn’t submitted for—or didn’t receive—certification is a puzzle considering Sprint and Clearwire’s plans to begin their nationwide rollout of WiMAX next year. But the N810s absence makes more sense, given that the WiMAX/Wi-Fi module likely to power it, Intel’s ‘Echo Peak P’ chip, was certified.

The Forum plans to expedite the certification of embedded electronics by certifying the handhelds by certifying the wireless modules under a rigorous testing program and then the devices using them under a much faster and cheaper regimen. If Nokia is taking advantage of that program it will likely submit the N810 later after embedding it with the newly certified Intel chip. That could also explain why ZTE is not on the list. ZTE is supplying USB WiMAX modems for Sprint’s launch. ZTE is embedding Beceem modules in its CPE devices.

As for the other base station vendors, Alcatel-Lucent is not part of the Sprint or Clearwire launches so has no pressing need for a certified base station at 2.5 GHz. Nortel is also in the same boat, and given its recent announcement to focus its 4G energies on LTE and resell the Alvarion WiMAX base station, it gained a certified product line by virtue of Alarvion’s inclusion on the list.

Those vendors not in the first certification batch probably won’t have to wait long for their chance. The Forum plans to take in a continuous stream of WiMAX submissions the remainder of the year and pursue an aggressive testing schedule. The time between Wave 1 and Wave 2 certification was a mere two months and by the end of the year, the Forum plans to launch its third profile: the 3.5 GHz spectrum held by many European and other global operators.

"With the successful completion of extensive 2.5 GHz testing, we've laid the groundwork to speed up additional profile certifications and ultimately to continue advancing global WiMAX deployments at a record pace,” Forum president Ron Resnick said in a statement from the WiMAX Forum Global Congress in Amsterdam, where the Wave 2 products were announced.

Though there have been no official standard WiMAX products available until today, that hasn’t stopped operators from deploying the pre-certified technology. Most of those networks, however, have focused on fixed wireless business cases where base stations and CPE gear are bought from a single vendor. As WiMAX begins to edge into the mobility arena though, certification will become crucial as carriers must ensure that the devices from hundreds of individual device manufacturers will function properly on their networks.

The Forum estimates 100 products will be certified at the Forum’s main labs in Malaga, Spain, and other satellite labs by the end of 2008. By 2011, the Forum expects that number to increase to 1000.