Intel Corp. on Monday is expected to announce the availability of its chip for WiMAX applications. The release of the chip by Intel – which has been a central figure in driving interest in the standards-based broadband wireless technology known as WiMAX – has been awaited eagerly by a variety of turnkey equipment vendors that will embed the product into their products, as well as by the market as a whole. Airspan Networks Inc., Alvarion Inc. and Redline Communications are among the equipment vendors that plan to use the new Intel chips in their equipment.
Intel began sending its 802.16-2004-based chip, dubbed “Rosedale,” to several Intel “partners” in sample quantities beginning last September, Joe English, Intel’s WiMAX campaign manager communications strategist, told xchange in January at the Wireless Communications Association Symposium in San Jose, Calif.
It was at that same WCA event that a competing chip company, Wavesat Inc., went commercial with the first WiMAX chips. That company, which calls its WiMAX solution the DM256, already has delivered the chips to a long list of system and original device manufacturers.
Another contender, Fujitsu Microelectronics America, plans to announce its WiMAX SoC, MB87M3400, next week at the Broadband Wireless World show in Las Vegas.
Although WiMAX silicon now is becoming commercially available, official WiMAX systems won’t be out for at least a few months. That’s because the WiMAX Forum’s Certified program won’t even launch until July 2005, and systems-level products first must be certified before gaining the official title of WiMAX.
But so heavy is the hype related to WiMAX that several vendors over the past year or so have labeled their products “WiMAX ready”; Airspan discarded the term “WiMAX ready” altogether in its March 9 announcement of the AS.MAX family of WiMAX self-installable base stations and end-user devices; and additional companies are expected to announce “WiMAX” solutions shortly following the Intel news but before the formal certification process is complete.
Although equipment isn’t even available yet, WiMAX in the past year has received a lot of attention and much press. The technology is hot because it creates a standard method for broadband wireless, meaning that service providers can benefit from equipment savings due to economies of scale it allows the product designers and manufacturers.
“The top two pre-requisites for WiMAX success according to service providers surveyed is a CPE below $300 and higher throughput” says Adlane Fellah, principal researcher and founder of research firm Maravedis. “Service providers and end users will benefit from the adoption of WiMAX systems, which will help reduce equipment and component costs through integration and economies of scale. We expect the cost reduction impact to be mostly on the CPE and foresee data-only CPE at less than $100 by 2010.”
Making broadband wireless more affordable is more important than ever given that recent regulations make it too expensive for competitive carriers to lease incumbent telco networks at a reasonable cost, prompting many CLECs to search for alternative ways to reach customers. At the same time, many incumbent carriers are considering WiMAX as another option to reach business and residential customers within their regions or in new areas with broadband connections to deliver a variety of services.
