Nortel Networks announced today that it has joined the WiMAX Forum, which promotes interoperability for the 802.16 standard. Also, Cisco Systems is close to officially joining the group, according to a source affiliated with a current WiMAX Forum member company.

Nortel's confirmation of membership, along with the likelihood that Cisco will join, lends a large amount of vendor heft to the WiMAX cause. It's not that the group was lacking for membership, with well more than 100 companies involved, but with Nortel and possibly Cisco joining current forum members Alcatel, Siemens, Nokia, Huawei Technologies, Fujitsu and Motorola, most of the largest and traditionally most influential telecom equipment manufacturers have committed to working toward interoperability and producing WiMAX gear.

"Most" means that there is someone still standing on the sidelines. In this case, the two biggest vendors that haven't joined the forum are Lucent Technologies and Ericsson. This doesn't mean they don't like the idea of WiMAX--both companies have said supportive things publicly about the potential of 802.16 technology and have contributed to the industry's existing well of knowledge about the technology.

There also is nothing new or particularly negative about seeing vendors skirting around WiMAX Forum membership. Nortel kept the group at arm's length for the last several months even though it was actively interested in what was going on with WiMAX. Also, Nokia joined the forum long ago, let its membership lapse because it surmised that the market was a long way off and, more recently, re-joined the forum. So, in that sense, Lucent and Ericsson merely seem to be in wait-and-see mode.

Because the WiMAX market may not take off in earnest until 2006 or so, these vendors probably can afford to stay in that mode even longer. It's not like they're falling behind, or that they fail to comprehend the importance of interoperability (both having contributed interoperability movements in other technology areas).

Having said all this, it seems like there is no good reason that Lucent and Ericsson have to commit themselves to Forum membership right now. Of course, unless we're missing some key concerns that they have about the forum, this also means that there is no good reason why they shouldn't join, either.

Editor's Note: This is my last column for Telephony's Wireless & Wi-Fi Weekly; beginning Monday, I will now host Telephony's Broadband Barrage. Kevin Fitchard will be taking over starting next week, and will become your main contact for wireless news and information at Telephony. I'll be supervising him, so be sure to let me know if he causes any trouble.

E-mail me at doshea@primediabusiness.com.