Motorola heads straight for mobile WiMax

IDG News Service - Motorola Inc. is moving aggressively toward the next generation of WiMax wireless broadband, gearing up to introduce two product lines without waiting for the WiMax Forum to finish specifications for the technology.

The Schaumburg, Ill., communications vendor is bypassing completely the first form of WiMax, intended solely for broadband services to fixed client devices, and is already developing a portfolio called Moto Wi4 that's based on the IEEE 802.16e standard, which ultimately will allow mobile access, Senior Marketing Manager Paul Sergeant said Wednesday.

Its strategy could find a strong U.S. backer in Sprint Nextel Corp., the company formed through the merger of Sprint and Nextel that was completed Aug. 12. The merged carrier holds about 80% of U.S. licenses for a band of spectrum around 2.5 GHz and is exploring wireless broadband options for it. It's soon to begin trials of Moto Wi4 gear, Sergeant said.

Like other networking companies, Motorola expects a bigger market to develop around the mobile standard even though it lags fixed WiMax, which the WiMax Forum has already begun testing for product interoperability and standards compliance. The IEEE 802.16e standard isn't yet completed, though Sergeant expects it to be finished soon, and the WiMax Forum isn't expected to certify products based on it until 2007.

"We're not waiting that long," Sergeant said. The only attractive technology for Motorola is 802.16e, because fixed WiMax gear won't be upgradable to the mobile technology, he said. In addition, the second-generation standard will perform better even in fixed applications, he added. Motorola expects most operators to go to mobile-capable networks.

Motorola's first products based on IEEE 802.16e will be generally available next year, Sergeant said. Despite their relationship to the mobile standard, they won't support mobility at first: There are too many technical issues, such as handoffs from one access point to another, to tackle that feature just yet, he said. When the software for those functions becomes available, service providers will be able to upgrade their products over the air to support mobility and meet the specifications, according to Sergeant.


Those products will take advantage of Motorola's Canopy technology, which uses relatively small and inexpensive access points for high-speed data services delivered by small Internet service providers as well as carriers in the developing world. They will continue to be aimed at these types of providers and will lack some carrier-class features such as redundancy, Sergeant said.

The second line of Moto Wi4 products, which will be the focus of the Sprint Nextel trial, are expected to become