The IEEE today approved the 802.16e standard setting the stage for the first Mobile WiMAX products due out by 2007, vendors participating in the standardization process confirmed late this afternoon. While the decision is not a surprise by any means--the specification was published two months ago--the standard’s final approval frees the WiMAX Forum to begin developing its certification process and gives vendors a definitive blueprint against which to build their Mobile WiMAX and WiBro gear.

"This eases the development process," said Juan Santiago, Motorola's senior director of WiMAX product management. "Before the standard was finalized, there was some uncertainity in how to build our products. We know the 'what' so now we can go out and build it."

The IEEE re-designated 802.16e as 802.16-2005, just as it renamed 802.16d, the fixed wireless version of the technology, 802.16-2004. The main differences between the two technologies are the addition of mobility and increased capacity. Fixed WiMAX, based on 802.16-2004, is designed as a stationary technology usually with separate customer premises equipment (CPE) and an antenna installed in a fixed location. Many vendors have been working within the IEEE and WiMAX Forum standards to build portability and limited mobility into their equipment, but only with 802.16-2005 and Mobile WiMAX comes the capability to hand off sessions between base stations, allowing for true mobility.

The first round of fixed WiMAX certification is almost complete, and the first fully certified products are expected to hit the market by the first quarter of 2006. Carriers have already been signing deployment deals for the infrastructure, however, either committing to trials of the pre-certified versions of the equipment or agreeing to buy the certified gear as soon as it is available. Today the Alberta Special Areas board announced a commercial network deployment of fixed WiMAX systems across an 8000 square-mile area of rural Alberta using Nortel Networks equipment. While Nortel is developing its own Mobile WiMAX portfolio with partner LG Electronics, it is reselling Airspan’s fixed WiMAX line in the initial phase of deployments.

While the number of Fixed WiMAX deployments are steadily increasing, the real money and growth is expected to be in Mobile WiMAX a few years from now. Not only will mobility and additional capacity be added to the mix, vendors are expected to begin embedding WiMAX CPE chips directly into laptops and other devices, much as they do with Wi-Fi chipsets today.