WiMAX Forum starts validation early for 2.3 GHz mobile certification profile

PORTLAND, USA: The WiMAX Forum announced that validation testing for the 2.3 GHz Mobile WiMAX profile in the 5/10 MHz and 8.75 MHz channels has begun and expects the first group of 2.3 GHz products to be WiMAX Forum Certified in 4Q 2009.

“The acceleration of the certification of 2.3 GHz WiMAX products demonstrates the WiMAX Forum’s unwavering commitment to effective certification programs for the ecosystem,” said Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, acting president of WiMAX Forum.

“The WiMAX Forum’s goal is to create an ecosystem that is supported by interoperable products. Our progress in certification of 2.3GHz also shows the market demand and potential for this spectrum band.”

The 2.3 GHz WiMAX operators are amongst the fastest growing sectors in WiMAX ecosystem. Globally, the WiMAX Forum has tracked 29 commercial deployments in this spectrum band as of June 2009.

“The certification of 2.3 GHz products is critical to the deployment of WiMAX networks in regions such as India, Asia and Africa,” said Ed Agis, co-chair of the WiMAX Forum Certification Working Group.

“Certification profiles for 2.3 GHz also pave the way for WiMAX Forum Certified tri-band devices in 2010 which will increase the opportunities for true global roaming across networks in the 2.3, 2.5 and 3.5 GHz spectrum bands which make up a global WiMAX footprint today.”

Currently, 13 WiMAX Forum member companies have submitted subscriber station and/or base station equipment to be part of the validation testing pool. With such a promising turnout from the vendor community, the WiMAX Forum sees the potential of multiple different form factors in this profile using WiMAX devices to enter the marketplace by early 2010.

Mobile WiMAX operators like Korea Telecom and Packet One are amongst the most active operators engaging with the WiMAX Forum for the 2.3 GHz validation process, providing over-site to the test cases and adding their networking expertise to optimize the tests for their networks.

“We are encouraged by how rapid this validation process has become thanks to best practices and knowledge gained from previous validation and certification processes,” said Agis. “At the start of the certification program, it took about nine months to get the first batch of test cases complete. Now it only takes two to three months to validate the test cases before we start certifying devices.”