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April 14, 2005

WiMax's Slipping Date Has Pressured Makers

By Glenn Fleishman

Investor’s Business Daily says that WiMax’s delays has changed the marketplace for gear: It’s hammered the stock of companies poised to be early entrants, and that are now selling so-called pre-WiMax gear that uses standards and technology similar to what will be certified in July. While the delay of a year from the original timetable to get WiMax certification finished hasn’t dimmed interest in products based on the technology, it means that Alvarion and Airspan among others face a much larger competitive landscape when gear finally ships.

The article manages to perpetuate two common errors, unfortunately. First, it fails to distinguish between the IEEE’s standards work that resulted in 802.16-2004 (encompassing everything but 802.16e, the mobile WiMax flavor) and WiMax certification. The IEEE doesn’t certify, and the article draws an analogy with Wi-Fi that has the same flaw. But the writer rightly notes that certification is yet to come.

The second error is that the initial WiMax products will compete with Wi-Fi. That’s still probably two years away. Initial WiMax equipment will walk and talk like existing pre-WiMax gear: it’s meant for excellent fixed point-to-multipoint coverage using customer premises equipment or CPEs.

Carriers aren’t discouraged by the delays. If anything, this article implies that they’re doing more testing with equipment from more vendors given that they have had more time to figure out their ultimate plan.

Posted by Glennf at April 14, 2005 1:22 AM

Categories: mainstream press

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