WiMAX Forum (News - Alert), which was formed by technology corporations and service providers to accelerate wide-scale adoption of Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) technology, recently celebrated 10 years of success and accomplishments. Since 2001, the Forum has worked to support its membership as the industry grew from its fledgling state to encompass nearly 600 WiMAX deployments in 150 countries today.
WiMAX Forum was formed with three primary goals in mind: establish standards and build profiles for equipment that ensured interoperability; work with government agencies to release spectrum; establish and grow an ecosystem nurturing vendor innovation and carrier deployment to encourage mass adoption of WiMAX technologies. With the efforts of members of WiMAX Forum, the technology has changed the way the world connects. Now WiMAX technology is used by consumers in 150 countries, and is gaining acceptance in vertical industries such as aviation and Smart Grid.
"The WiMAX Forum was built around the idea of open standards, free sharing of information, low patent usage fees and collaboration across the ecosystem," said Ron Resnick (News - Alert), president and chairman of the WiMAX Forum, in a statement. "Our founding members were trying to fundamentally change the telecommunication industry by introducing an all-IP global standards-based wireless broadband technology to meet the pent up demands of consumers and allow for more choice of services and devices. The move away from the traditional telephony business-model built on voice-centric architecture to an internet model based on ubiquitous data-centric networks is a revolution that the entire world will benefit from."
"WiMAX enables innovative complimentary data business model based on open retail, low IPR and wide bandwidth spectrum allocation globally serving 4G, rural broadband, backhaul and Smart Grid deployments," said Mo Shakouri, Corporate Vice President, Innovation and Marketing for Alvarion (News - Alert), "and this is a good thing for consumers and businesses across the world. Alvarion would like to thank the WiMAX Forum for its support, and congratulate it on this milestone."
Rahul Arora is a TMCnet contributor. He has worked as an editor and freelance writer for several reputed organizations in India. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.