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WiMAX Forum Reports 10 Million WiMAX subscribers Worldwide

As the world makes strides toward 4G, a growing number of operators, OEMs and other telecommunications providers are taking up LTE and WiMAX technology.

At today’s WiMAX Forum (News - Alert) Americas 2009 conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., XJ Wang, marketing director for the WiMAX Forum, told attendees there are now 540 WiMAX network deployments in 146 countries around the world -- and more than 150 deployments in the Americas alone.

Although many of the WiMAX networks are greenfield, such as the Clearwire (News - Alert) WiMAX network in the United States, Wang said 95 WiMAX operators also have cellular networks, FierceWireless reported.

“There are GSM operators such as Digicel (News - Alert) that operate a WiMAX network too,” Wang said. “WiMAX contributes to the bottom line.”

And now that there are now a reported 10 million WiMAX subscribers worldwide, it appears the technology is moving from niche to mass market, Wang said, noting that that there are 165 WiMAX Forum certified products available.

A number of vendors touting WiMAX products attended the show. Chip maker Beceem Communications said it is on track with projections to sell 3 million WiMAX chips in 2009. The company announced the launch of “4G Turbo,” a number of Uplink performance improvements to the company’s 4G WiMAX chips. The 4G Turbo improvements further extend the performance of Beceem’s (News - Alert) chips, and the features can be used in any WiMAX network as they work with every Wave 2-compliant 4G-WiMAX base station.

Marisa Torrieri is a TMCnet Web editor, covering IP hardware and mobility, including IP phones, smartphones, fixed-mobile convergence and satellite technology. She also compiles and regularly contributes to TMCnet's gadgets and satellite e-Newsletters. To read more of Marisa's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Marisa Torrieri