December 9, 2005

After no less than 12 official drafts, the IEEE has approved the 684-page proposal from the 802.16 Task Group, designating the mobile WiMAX standard as 802.16e-2005.

The WiMAX Forum is set to begin trials and certification testing in early 2006, with certified products hitting the market later in the year and services following in early 2007.

The approval announcement brings to an end the work of the 802.16 Task Group, which has considered more than 6,000 comments and 900 documents since convening in December 2002 after the original 802.16e specification was approved.

"We projected completion in about 18 months," said Roger Marks, chairman of the Task Group. "Actual development took about twice that long. Though we all would have preferred to stick closer to schedule, the reality is that the working group changed dramatically during those years."

Since then, the group grew from 82 participants to 310, and the variety of applications for the group to consider mushroomed.

"I'm proud of the fact that we addressed all of the resulting needs, continuing to harmonize and build consensus to ensure a result with broad support and applicability," said Marks.

However, Marks noted that, "The IEEE standards are not mandatory, and the IEEE logo is not by itself going to convince anyone to adopt our standards and put them to use."

The industry seems eager to adopt the new standard, as pre-WiMAX products are already in use where pre-WiMAX networks are under construction or already up and running.

Source: RCR