Make-or-break year for WiMAX
It's clear that 2005 will be the make or break year for WiMAX. Every wireless chip and equipment maker of note bar Qualcomm is now part of the WiMAX Forum; the planned harmonization of 802.16e with Korea’s Wi-Bro could create the first unified global standard for both fixed and mobile communications; WiMAX could quite realistically be the basis, in later iterations, of 4G.
Yet it remains, at the start of 2005, a phantom technology. Standards are ratified but not equipment has yet been tested or certified for compliance; most of the assumptions about the pros and cons of WiMAX are based on experience with proprietary broadband wireless, operating with very different business models and cost structures. Two things are certain in this hazy picture – WiMAX has the potential to be the most disruptive communications technology since Marconi, and it will only achieve this is significant milestones are achieved during the year ahead, in order to maintain confidence and momentum and fend off the challenge from the cellular community.
