NEW ORLEANS--WiMAX proponent Alvarion today announced a surprise move into the CDMA 2000 space, announcing at CTIA Wireless 2005 it is preparing a 1X base station for fixed wireless deployments using technology from recent acquired cellular base station vendor InterWave.

"We are all about WiMAX," said Carlton O'Neil, vice president of marketing for Alvarion. "But there are particular markets in the developing world and in rural areas that WiMAX doesn't target. Three-quarters of the market we can address with WiMAX, but for that other quarter, we're opting to address it with 3G."

O'Neil said costs for WiMAX infrastructure are simply too high to justify its uses in developing countries--a $50,000 base station doesn't make economic sense in less dense areas where revenues per user are low. O'Neil declined to say what Alvarion would price its 1X base station at."Let's just say it's going to be less," O'Neil said."It will be at wireless local loop pricing."

O'Neil added that there is nothing inherent in WiMax or other broadband wireless technologies making them unsuitable for any rural or developing world deployments. Right now, it's simply a matter of cost, but once WiMax products are shipping in volumes and the industry achieves the economies of scale that cellular now enjoys, O'Neil said Alvarion would be able to target all markets with WiMax.

Alvarion expects to launch the product, called the Breeze2000, in the second quarter. Using standard 1X infrastructure, the base station will be IP-based with its own self-contained switch, support data rates up to 153 kb/s and will be available for 450 MHz, 850 MHz, 1900 MHz and 2100 MHz.