Alvarion on Track for Mobile WiMax

LAS VEGAS—WiMax provider Alvarion Inc. said Thursday that the company is on schedule for mobile WiMax deployment, with a demonstration of the technology scheduled for next year.

The public WiMax timetable, according to Intel Corp. and other WiMax supporters, is to bring to market the first WiMax chips in 2005 for residential deployment, with a mobile version due in 2006. Analysts have said that each version of the technology may require at least another year to become mainstream, however.

/zimages/6/28571.gifClick hereto read about Intels plans to add WiMax to its chip sets for notebooks and smart phones.

Based on the emerging IEEE 802.16e standard, mobile WiMax deployments are expected to provide up to 15M bps of capacity within a typical cell radius deployment of up to three kilometers.

“Mobile broadband is a huge market opportunity for the whole telecom industry, and we have taken several high-profile actions to ensure that we extend our leadership in fixed broadband wireless solutions into that space,” said Zvi Slonimsky, chief executive of Alvarion, in a statement.

“We have the major building blocks of this solution in-house already, with our many years of experience designing and deploying OFDM systems, our early and long involvement with the WiMax Forum, and certain core mobile technologies and know-how resulting from our recent acquisition of specialized mobile systems provider interWAVE.”

Alvarion said that it had established a dedicated business unit to focus on the strategic direction and position in the WiMax market, headed by Zvika Harnik, a former Alvarion vice president and head of its R&D business.

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