Despite the muddiness surrounding the WiMAX certification process, several WiMAX vendors moved ahead with their product portfolios. Airspan networks today discarded the old monikers “pre-WiMAX” and “WiMAX ready,” labeling its new family of 802.16-2004 base stations and CPE units simply “WiMAX.”

Meanwhile, Wavesat announced today it has begun development on its 802.16e chipset, helped out with $1 million cash infusion from Canada’s National Research Council’s Industrial Assistance Program. Earlier this week, Alvarion released the latest microcell in its family of “WiMAX ready” BreezeMax base stations. And today SiGe Semiconductor, a major provider of Wi-Fi power amplifiers, joined the WiMAX Forum.

Airspan launched its AS.Max product line at CeBit in Hanover, Germany, claiming the line is the industry’s first integrated data and voice solution. The line consists of two CPE units: the EasyST, a consumer subscriber unit designed to be self-installed, and the ProST, a more robust outdoor unit designed for enterprises. The AS.Max line also includes three point-to-multipoint base stations: the HiperMax, its standard macro unit for typical urban deployments; the MacroMax, a highly scalable software defined radio (SDR) unit with indoor and outdoor components; and the MicroMax, a microcell designed for low-density, rural deployments. Airspan is also releasing a backhaul unit called the PrimeMax. Airspan said all the units would be software upgradeable to 802.16e mobile when equipment becomes available.

Interestingly enough, Airspan said the EasyST CPE would incorporate Intel’s “Rosedale” system-on-chip, the 802.16-2004 chipset the industry has been waiting for to conduct full interoperability trials. Intel is expected to be one of the biggest drivers of WiMAX, selling the baseband silicon needed to drive end-user devices. Intel unveiled its Rosedale project last September, when it said it was shipping samples to key customers. Since then Intel has indicated it had begun commercial shipments of the chip.

“We haven’t done a final launch yet,” an Intel spokeswoman said today. “It’s no secret though that our customers have samples of the chip around which they’re designing equipment. We will supply the final chips when our partners launch their equipment commercially.”

Airspan said the product line would be commercially available in the third quarter.

Wavesat said it plans to use its new funding this year and next year to commercialize a WiMAX mobile chipset. In December, Wavesat beat Intel and Fujitsu to the market with its WiMAX 802.16-2004 compliant CPE chip, supposedly giving its customers an edge in getting their product faster. Despite general availability of the chipset, however, no vendor has announced any BWA gear incorporating Wavesat’s baseband silicon.