Marconi has become the latest major vendor to throw in its lot with 802.16 vision of broadband wireless, announcing this week it has joined the WiMAX Forum.

Marconi already provides its own line of point-to-point and point-to-multipoint fixed wireless gear, and Marconi officials said its membership was part of its continuing effort to support standardization efforts in the industry.

“WiMAX is a great opportunity for us to broaden our already extensive fixed wireless capability,” Alex Marshall, vice president of product marketing for Marconi, said in a statement. “It will not only make the technology much more accessible for service providers and consumers, but also make the concept of a universally available broadband network realizable.”

While Marconi has not committed to build any products to the WiMAX spec, it joins the ranks of many global wireless vendors that are taking part in the Forum’s standardization work. Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks, Nokia, Motorola, Cisco Systems, Alcatel and Siemens have all joined the WiMAX Forum, but much of the effort in developing WiMAX basestations and radios has fallen to the specialty broadband wireless vendors such as Aperto and Alvarion.

The IEEE ratified the fixed wireless access specification of the technology, 802.16d, in June, opening the way for the WiMAX Forum to set up its certification requirements. The Forum is expected to open its testing labs and begin certifying gear by the end of this year or the beginning of 2005. The IEEE is also scheduled to finalize its mobile version of the spec, 802.16e, by the end of the year, which is of particular interests to the Forum's more WiFi-oriented members. Intel has already announced plans to develop silicon around the 802.16e specification, hoping to create a demand for the wireless broadband access technology similar to that generated by Centrino.