The big guns of the vendor community, a couple of whom seemed to be MIA as interest in WiMAX has surged, are getting closer to launching their initial WiMAX salvos. The first clue came earlier this summer at the WCA 2005 conference and expo, held during a steamy week in late June in Washington, D.C. Sprint and Motorola announced that they would be working together to develop and test solutions based on 802.16e.

This news confirmed the long-held belief that Motorola's WiMAX efforts would be focused on 802.16e rather than 802.16d-2004, but with its existing Canopy platform for broadband wireless deployments, Motorola's move to create a new platform is intriguing.

Juan Santiago, director of strategy for Canopy wireless broadband products at Motorola, said Canopy will continue to evolve, but will focus primarily on unlicensed deployments, while the company's upcoming WiMAX gear will be targeted at licensed frequency bands and service providers.

Santiago also explained why Motorola doesn't see a huge need to support 802.16d. He said link budget capabilities in equipment based on 802.16d will not be strong enough for most indoor deployments, eventually relegating that gear mostly to outdoor deployments. The initial cost of 802.16d equipment also will be an issue.

“802.16d might not be dead, but it is starting to look like a dead end,” Santiago said. “There will be teething pains with 802.16d — disagreements about channel sizes and other issues. We are going to be watching it from the outside. What really turned us is that you have to look at where the volumes will be. Some of the big chipset vendors are really looking more closely now at 802.16e.”

Nortel Networks, which also has been quiet about its WiMAX strategy until just weeks ago, sees some of the same writing on the wall.

“802.16e does have better support from the chipset vendors,” said Mark Whitton, vice president and general manager of WiMAX and wireless mesh at Nortel. “Some of them are doing one chip for 802.16d, but a whole series for 802.16e. The market for ‘d’ seems more limited.”

While Nortel still hasn't revealed its specific product plans, the company chose the WiMAX Forum quarterly members' meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia last month for a coming out party of sorts. A Nortel executive gave a presentation titled, “Why WiMAX 802.16e?”

Like Motorola, Nortel believes that 802.16e offers better technology benefits, and also greater prospects to fill a broadband gap.

“Right now, you can have reliable high-speed Internet access at home or at work, but not in between,” Whitton said. “WiMAX will be able to give you that. It's as dynamic an opportunity as mobile voice was back in the 1980s. Mobile voice filled the gap between home and work.”

While Motorola and Nortel are two more big vendors with similar views about 802.16e being the way to go, they ultimately may differ in their technology approaches.

Motorola has indicated that the 802.16e systems that will come out of its relationship with Sprint will use smart antenna technology “to create truly portable broadband,” Santiago said. Smart antenna, a technology that has been around for some time but has failed to capture mass market attention, received a boost recently when innovator Arraycomm partnered with Intel to promote the evolution of WiMAX systems using smart antenna technology.

But, Nortel will base its approach on Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) technology, which Whitton said improves on the complex electronics and operational/maintenance challenges presented by smart antennas. MIMO, meanwhile, has been winning support from both Wi-Fi and cellular companies for a place in their evolutions to bigger bandwidth.

Could MIMO versus smart antenna become a basis for hot debate in the WiMAX market? “I suppose it could develop into a technology bonfire, but I hope not,” Whitton said.

In related news, last month's WiMAX Forum meeting also featured application demonstrations involving Microsoft, Disney and other luminaries, and will signal the trade group's definitive departure from WiMAX's pre-market technology certification phase, said Mohammad Shakouri, vice president of marketing for the WiMAX Forum.

The group already is focusing more on issues such as how WiMAX fits into the overall broadband picture and what kind of market opportunity is presented by 802.16e, the mobility standard for WiMAX that is nearing IEEE approval.

“We're now moving away from the details of certification and into the real market issues,” Shakouri said.