WiMax Forum confirms that WiMax is in for real

WiMax Forum confirms that WiMax is in for real

The members of the WiMax forum met in Vancouver, Canada to demonstrate that the technology is indeed for real. The technology is backed by major tech companies like Intel, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Motorola, and others. It is supposed to revolutionize the current generation Wi-Fi technology to extend the capabilities of the wireless broadband connectivity to bigger distances.

However, critics of the technology say that the capabilities promised by this forum are currently in theory only and they need to do more than that. The forum meeting saw many involved companies demonstrating what they have accomplished until now. In addition, the forum also announced that its certification laboratory in Spain has started testing WiMax equipment for standard adherence interoperability.

Consumers should be able to purchase first such hardware capable of supporting the WiMax standards sometime later this year. The early model of equipments to be launched by these member companies would be based on the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard approved last fall. This limits the hardware to be used on fixed bases only. However, an updated standard is expected to be approved by the end of next year to remove these limitations.

Some of the companies that displayed the prototypes of their equipments were Alvarion, Proxim, Redline, and Wavesat. They showcased streaming video and television, VoIP and multiplayer gaming, the latter using Microsoft’s Xbox platform. Some of the networks showing interest in adopting this technology as and when it is commercially viable are biggies like Sprint, AT&T, BellSouth, Qwest, and British Telecom.