IEEE 802.16 Session 39

Executive Summary of Things Leanred

* Protocols
1. 802.16e spec to be finalized in Oct. 2005. So the Session 39 I am in is the final meeting
to make last changes, if any. Every item of 16e spec was read thru one by one during the session.
2. 802.16-2004, also known as 802.16d, has obsoleted 802.16a.
3. 802.16-2004 is for fixed broadband wireless only.

* Cerification
4. Cetecom Espanol (Spain) has certified WiMAX products since July 2005. Redline, a Canada based
WiMAX vendor, has get certified with its RedMAX product line.

* reality check
5. 16e may have battery issues. This issue must be taken care of precautiously.
6. 16e will enable verious mobile scenarios up to 120km/h.
7. 16e will be backward compatible, which means it also supports 802.16-2004

* outlook
8. WiMAX phones may undermine the base of 3G. In fact, Korea calls WiMAX phones as 4G.
9. 3.4GHz-3.7GHz spectrum is occupied by CHT-Sintel satellite only. So this is not a global issue or difficult one.
DGT of Taiwan expects to resolve it very soon.

* Session visibility
10. IEEE 802.16 chair, 802.16 working group chairs all arrived in session.
This is a superb IEEE meeting full of celebrities that has ever seen in Taiwan.

* WiMAX-enabled Services
11. Deployment of WiMAX services by ISP are real, for example Sydney of Autrailia, and many cities in North America.

* Vendors
12. Gemtek (正文), CyberTAN are 2 existing 802.16 vendors located in Taiwan.
CyberTAN is the co-host of this IEEE Session, in fact. Dr. Stanly Wang of CyberTAN chaired a series of panals today.
13. Nortel focused on 802.11-based Wireless Mesh, no solution yet on WiMAX known to the market.
14. Redline is still the leading company in WiMAX. Intel has made every efforts to dominate chip markets of WiMAX.
15. Wavesat, Alvarion, Aperto, and Samsung show strong commitments on WiMAX product R&D.

* Predictions
16. The really juicy market is not the fixed broadband wireless (802.16-2004) but in-home multimedia distribution
and mobile users on the road (802.16e).
17. The WIrelessMAN-OFDMA technology will be the winning air interface for 802.16e.
18. Let's forget license exempt WiMAX. The protocal will disappear.
19. In the future, 802.11 may disappear and the function of WLAN is replaced by 802.16e.
So the broadband wireless future may be an all-IP, all-WiMAX wireless broadband world.
802.11 will eventually die because of no Quality of Service (QoS).
20. WiMAX supports email, http, VoIP, Video Conference, and even real time service and steaming services
as described by 3GPP. WiMAX does it robustly with less cost.