News that Nokia had left the WiMax Forum has been interpreted in some quarters as proof that the technology, known officially as IEEE 802.16 Global Broadband Wireless Access, has been over-hyped. However, Nokia was keen to play down the significance of its decision, which it attributed to the slow development of the market.
It’s important for us to show that we are participating in 802.16 standardization, said Oscar Salonaho, head of network technology marketing for Nokia. But WiMax is more about providing interoperability of existing products. We have no products so it makes sense [to reduce our involvement].
Nor, it seems, does Nokia have any intention of developing WiMax-certified equipment based on the non-mobile versions of the technology, namely 802.16a and 802.16d. It will keep an open mind with regard to the 802.16e variant though, which will enable users to remain connected while moving around. A draft of this specification is not expected before the second half of this year and standardization remains some way off.
The early versions, ‘a’ and ‘d’, are not a big market for us. There would be no point in us having a big involvement there, said Salonaho. 802.16e is in a very early phase. It’s very hard to say this or that in terms of its commercial viability but it is important for us to still be involved in standardization.
Salonaho said Nokia sees WiMax primarily as a future addition to what he described as its multi-radio strategy. In this scenario, WiMax is likely to become just one form of wireless access on future Nokia devices, sharing space with other forms of connectivity such as WCDMA, EDGE and WLAN.
Nokia demonstrated its early intentions in this emerging market with the February launch of its Communicator 9500, which combines GSM, GPRS, EDGE, WLAN and Bluetooth in the same device. Some other device manufacturers, such as Motorola, are following a similar pattern.
We don’t want to say it is over-hyped but one future we don’t see for WiMax is that it will kill cellular networks. They are complementary, said Salonaho.
Nokia, Intel and Fujitsu were the highest profile founders of the WiMax Forum. The body was created in April 2003 as part of an effort to drive interoperability of wireless networking equipment based on the 802.16 standard.
Nokia’s departure from the fold is unlikely to have serious repercussions for the group, which now boasts major service providers such as France Telecom, Qwest Communications and BT Group among its members.
WiMax offers up to 70Mbps over a range of 31 miles from a single base station. This is enough bandwidth, it is estimated, to simultaneously supply about 60 businesses with T1-levels of connectivity or hundreds of domestic users at 200-400Kbps. Early versions are expected to be used primarily by service provides for last mile broadband coverage and backhaul for WLAN hotspots.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
