Resnick pointed to the more than 150 pilot and commercial WiMax networks globally and the steady momentum of WiMax product releases from operators, hardware vendors and content providers.
WiMax products are shipping, and we expect to see strong momentum of rapid deployments around the globe, Resnick said.
His confidence comes during the first WiMax Forum Plenary Meeting and the Global WiMax Summit, both held in Asia recently with combined attendance of about 2,500.
While the first spate of WiMax Forum-certified products would likely be for fixed outdoor networks, the group also expects at some future point to certify equipment supporting portable and mobile WiMax applications also, Resnick said.
At recent events in China, various WiMax equipment makers demonstrated interoperability between products, with the average throughput of equipment tested ranging from 2.8Mbps to 7.2Mbps, he said.
Intel Corp has also touted its own WiMax success, pointing to the deployment of thirteen WiMax networks based on its technologies with 11 more carriers readying additional Intel-based WiMax networks by year’s end.
Existing Intel-based trials are happening in France, Finland, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Poland, Uruguay, the Philippines, Spain and Ireland and elsewhere, Intel said.
Which all sounds very exciting, except for the fact Intel has no US- or UK-based WiMax field trials and no concrete data from existing trials.
And the industry-led nonprofit WiMax Forum may be gearing up to certify WiMax products, but the IEEE is yet to even ratify the technology’s specification.
