Intel last week raised the curtain on its first-ever WiMAX product, galvanizing a burgeoning broadband wireless market where it has invested significant capital and marketing muscle over the past two years.

Intel began shipping in volume its PRO/Wireless 5116 broadband interface chipset, previously code named “Rosedale.” The system-on-a-chip (SOC) can send and receive wireless broadband signals from base stations dozens of miles away and is fully compliant with the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard. Optimized for self-installed WiMAX modems and residential gateways, the chip features a programmable architecture enabling equipment manufacturers to integrate additional applications and is priced at about $45 each in quantities of 1000.

“This is a big deal for us,” Ron Peck, director of marketing for Intel's WiMAX Group, said in a conference call. “We think [WiMAX] is the way to get to the next billion broadband users.”

It's a big deal not only for Intel but also for the WiMAX vendor community, which in no small part has been legitimized by Intel's official entry into the space.

“Intel promised the industry a couple years ago it would have a chip, and we promised to work with them to do that — two years later, all that work's paid off,” said Carlton O'Neal, vice president of marketing for wireless broadband network infrastructure provider Alvarion, a longtime Intel partner. “Intel's come to the game and put their chip where their mouth is — now the whole industry can really leverage that.”

Alvarion was one of several vendors to announce its adoption of the PRO/Wireless 5116 chip in the hours following the product's official release, proclaiming successful integration of the chip into its BreezeMAX 3500 customer premises equipment (CPE). Broadband wireless access systems provider Aperto Networks likewise announced implementation of the 5116 chip into its own PacketWave CPE line of products for the 3.5 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands.

“[Intel's announcement] helps legitimize the WiMAX industry,” said Alan Menezes, vice president of marketing for Aperto. “They've created additional momentum and drawn the attention of carriers that may not have been paying attention to this market as a different way of access. If you don't own cable or copper, the only way to get broadband access to your customer is through broadband wireless.”

Aperto also announced last week at Broadband Wireless World in Las Vegas its collaboration with Fujitsu Microelectronics America to test that firm's own WiMAX SOC solution, the new Fujitsu MB87M3400 (see story, page 9).

“The Intel chip is ideal for CPE, especially consumer-oriented subscriber equipment, and the Fujitsu chip is a bit more versatile and can be used for business-class subscriber equipment,” Menezes said. “We wanted to make sure our core technologies were able to integrate with both of these chipsets.”

The Intel and Fujitsu SOC announcements were not the only WiMAX news making headlines last week: Broadband wireless service provider NextWeb said it will imminently launch voice-over-IP (VoIP) services spanning 175 cities and 3500 square miles across California, representing the U.S. market's largest VoIP rollout over a pre-WiMAX network to date.

“This is a major signal to the rest of the world — financial, carriers, CPE vendors, people in related or competing industries, whatever — that WiMAX is real,” O'Neal said. “You can only tell the story for so long before you have to put up and shut up, and I think everyone can see that we are an industry moving to that mainstream spot where DSL, cable and cell phones are now.”

INTEL EFFECT

Vendors currently developing WiMAX gear based on Intel's PRO/Wireless 5116 chip

Alvarion
Aperto Networks
Huawei Technologies
Proxim
Redline Communications
Siemens AG
ZTE

Carriers planning WiMAX trials

AT&T
BT Group
Brasil Telecom SA
Qwest Communications
Telefonos de Mexico SA de CV

Source: Intel