* Industry turns corner in getting WiMAX services deployed
WiMAX, a.k.a. “broadband wireless” technology, got a shot in the arm last week when its biggest backer, Intel, announced availability of an 802.16-2004 CPE system-on-a-chip. The launch represented one of the first of a shipping WiMAX product.
802.16-2004 is the WiMAX flavor for fixed broadband last-mile technology. Forthcoming 802.16-2004-based wireless networks will be analogous to wired DSL or cable modem connections.
The Intel silicon received industry backing from carriers worldwide who said they plan to begin commercial WiMAX trials based on the products later this year.
The 802.16-2004 standard has been final since last June; however, other than Wavesat subscriber and base station chips, which began generally shipping in January, no other compliant products have become available. Proprietary broadband wireless last-mile products and carrier services are available; having standards will create economies of scale and vendor interoperability that should allow WiMAX-based services to expand beyond the niches where broadband wireless services currently can be found.
From a capacity perspective, Ron Peck, director of WiMAX marketing at Intel, said that the 802.16-2004 standard should reasonably deliver 2M bit/sec per hertz and that most geographies have 5 hertz of spectrum for WiMAX allocated. So 10M bit/sec of bandwidth, shared among service provider customers, should be generally achievable.
“[WiMAX is] the way to get broadband to the next million users,” Peck said.
He said that the Intel PRO/Wireless 5116 CPE-on-a-chip (formerly code-named “Rosedale”) will cost between $40 and $50 in quantities of 1,000. The 5116 represents the subscriber component that resides at the business or home end of the wireless connection to a service provider point of presence.
He said there are four or five major carriers with licensed spectrum in the U.S. testing service with the 5116. Among them: AT&T, BT, TowerStream and Qwest.
