Industry Leaders Back Mobile WiMAX Enhancements

Industry Leaders Back Mobile WiMAX™ Enhancements

WiMAX Forum® Accepts Contribution at Global Congress

AMSTERDAM, June 16, 2010 - The WiMAX Forum announced that a group of leading 4G WiMAX equipment manufacturers, service providers and chip companies have reached a major milestone in advancing the speed of data and the efficiency of broadband wireless networks based on the 802.16e Mobile WiMAX standard at the WiMAX Forum Global Congress in Amsterdam this week.

Technical experts from Alvarion, Beceem, Clearwire, Fujitsu, GCT Semiconductor, Hitachi, Huawei, Intel, Motorola, NEC, Samsung, Sequans, UQ and ZTE have created a proposal on enhancements to the IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMAX standard for submission into the next WiMAX Forum certification release. This proposal documents how the performance enhancements are to be implemented in future WiMAX products in a way that further ensures their interoperability and broad commercial availability.

"On average, our mobile 4G customers are consuming more than seven gigabytes of data every month," said Ron Marquardt, vice president of technology for Clearwire. "We're committed to constant innovation and these enhancements to the 802.16e standard will increase our ability to meet the incredible demand for super fast mobile Internet both in the home and on the go."

The specific enhancements to the 802.16e Mobile WiMAX standard include:
? Increased data uplink and downlink budgets that improve the performance of WiMAX devices operating at the outer edges of a WiMAX cell or enable the service provider to increase the coverage of a given cell;
? Up to 70 percent improved spectral efficiency and an associated potential doubling of peak data rates;
? New technologies for reducing signal interference both within cells and among cell sites;
? Improved frequency Reuse 1 deployment schemes

These enhancements will be achieved via software-only upgrades for WiMAX enabled client devices. There also are optional provisions to increase performance by way of hardware additions as in the case of adding antennas to base stations.

The WiMAX Forum is targeting validation of equipment that incorporates these new enhancements before the end of this year, which would lead to certified products from multiple vendors starting in 2011.

"Despite the great progress the WiMAX industry has made over the past couple of years with an explosion of new networks and devices, we are not resting on our laurels," said Dr. Fumio Watanabe, CTO of UQ Communications Inc. "UQ has already upgraded almost all devices in its network to be capable of more than 20 Mbps downlink speeds. We are pleased to see the industry banding together to further accelerate the performance and efficiency of today's WiMAX technology networks even as we continue to make plans for the next generation of WiMAX technology - 802.16m."

For more information on the WiMAX Forum 802.16e enhancement standards, please visit http://www.wimaxforum.org/resources/documents/marketing/whitepapers.

Additional Quotes from Contributing Companies

Eran Gorev, president and CEO, Alvarion
"The WiMAX industry has moved swiftly to develop this specification in response to the growing market demand for broadband services worldwide. Today, WiMAX is enabling new business models based on high bandwidth data consumption. Alvarion is confident these new 16e enhancements will further improve the business case of operators looking to deploy high-capacity wireless networks for broadband services."

Lars Johnsson, Vice President Marketing and Business Development, Beceem
"After more than 5 years of commercial 4G network experience the WiMAX leaders are coming together to formalize the many innovations that result from operating and tuning commercial networks that carry multiple Gigabytes of user traffic per month. These easy to implement, mostly SW based features should give WiMAX service providers a lasting performance lead in comparison to the LTE networks that are just now being trialed."

Nobuhiko Aneha, General Manager of WiMAX System Technology Product Division, Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited
"Fujitsu considers the new 802.16 Enhanced as an optimal performance-cost trade-off for the actual mobile WiMAX networks, along the logical path that drives the WiMAX industry to the next generation of 802.16m based networks."

Dr. KH Lee, President and CEO, GCT Semiconductor
"With our extensive WiMAX deployment experience, GCT Semiconductor is pleased to be a member of this initiative to enhance the 802.16e mobile WiMAX standard and offer WiMAX service providers the tools to advance the data speed and efficiency of growing WiMAX networks."

Xinhong Tang, President, WiMAX product line, Huawei
"Huawei has been dedicated to the development of WiMAX for years and we have made great achievements on such as uplink technologies, FFR reuse 1 networking and 4T4R MIMO Beamforming to ensure the enhancement of WiMAX 802.16e. In May 2010, Huawei and vividwireless launched world's first MIMO Beamforming WiMAX network in Australia and the network capability improved 30% with the launch of this advanced solution. We are very encouraged by this real world case and also fully support this WiMAX 16e enhancement initiative."

Pouya Taaghol, CTO, Intel's WiMAX group
"We're appreciative of the ongoing development by these wireless industry leaders to quickly proliferate these near-term, significant performance advancements to WiMAX networks. Intel will continue to work closely with this group to ensure these enhancements are widely available and easy for operators to deploy."

Fred Gabbard, Vice President of Product Management, Motorola Networks "WiMAX and OFDM technology are well suited to address a diverse set of application demands. Beamforming, interference cancellation and other advanced performance enhancements allow operators to increase the number of users, data volume and peak rate supported by a given amount of radio spectrum. With these improvements, operators can add more users and provide a better experience, making a compelling business case even more attractive, especially as operators shift their network focus from initial deployments and coverage to optimization and capacity. Overall, there is an increased need for spectral efficiency and that's what 802.16e Enhanced delivers."

K. Jay Miyahara, Corporate Chief Engineer, NEC Corporation
"NEC is delighted to see WiMAX 16e proving true broadband data services to end users in the real commercial networks. The results from these commercial rollouts have been fed back into our R&D activities to continuously enhance the performance of WiMAX Network. NEC is fully supporting this WiMAX 16e enhancement effort to elevate the quality of user experience to higher standards and also taking the careful method protecting and assuring the investment that WiMAX 16e operators have made."

Dr. Hung Song, Vice President of Global Marketing Group, Telecommunication Systems Business, Samsung
"Mobile WiMAX is opening up a true mobile broadband era and changing people's lifestyle by enabling them to access internet service anywhere and anytime at a reasonable price. Based on a strong cooperation with distinguished partners in the WiMAX industry, Samsung continues to provide more advanced and cost-effective solutions beyond expectation at the right time."

Georges Karam, CEO, Sequans
"Sequans is pleased to contribute to this important industry effort to increase the efficiency of Mobile WiMAX networks. Sequans has pioneered dual transmit uplink technology, one of the key 802.16e enhancements, and we are pleased to see service providers benefiting from increased cell coverage, and users benefiting from the improved performance that underscores the value of Mobile WiMAX as a key broadband wireless technology."

Sean Cai, VP of TDD Product Line, ZTE USA
"The performance enhancements committed by ZTE, together with other leading WiMAX ecosystem partners, will be applauded by operators today to meet their ever increasing demands for high network speed, efficiency, and reliability. The upgrade process to existing networks should be low-cost and simple, and simplicity is the key. For WiMAX enabled devices, these enhancements can be achievable via software-only upgrades"

About the WiMAX Forum®
The WiMAX Forum® is an industry-led, not-for-profit organization formed to certify and promote the compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products based upon the harmonized IEEE 802.16e/ETSI HiperMAN standard. A WiMAX Forum goal is to accelerate the introduction of these systems into the marketplace. WiMAX Forum Certified products are interoperable and support broadband fixed, nomadic, portable and mobile services. Along these lines, the WiMAX Forum works closely with service providers and regulators to ensure that WiMAX Forum Certified systems meet customer and government requirements. Through the WiMAX Forum Congress Events Series of global trade shows and events, the WiMAX Forum is committed to furthering education, training and collaboration to expand the reach of the WiMAX ecosystem. For more information, visit the trade show link at www.wimaxforum.org.

Last updated: Apr 7, 2020 at 12:02 pm CDT