What is WiMAX ?
WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a wireless industry coalition dedicated to the advancement of IEEE 802.16 standards for broadband wireless access (BWA) networks.
WiMAX History
Tasks of 802.16a were made and completed in 2004. This revised standard, IEEE 802.16-2004, replaces 802.16, 802.16a, and 802.16c with a single standard, which has also been adopted as the basis for HIPERMAN (high-performance metropolitan area network) by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute). In 2003, the 802.16 group began work on enhancements to the specifications to allow vehicular mobility applications. That revision, 802.16e, was completed in December 2005 and was published formally as IEEE 802.16e-2005. It specifies scalable OFDM for the physical layer and makes further modifications to the MAC layer to accommodate high-speed mobility.
As it turns out, the IEEE 802.16 specifications are a collection of standards with a very broad scope. In order to accommodate the diverse needs of the industry, the standard incorporated a wide variety of options. In order to develop interoperable solutions using the 802.16 family of standards, the scope of the standard had to be reduced by establishing consensus on what options of the standard to implement and test for interoperability. The IEEE developed the specifications but left to the industry the task of converting them into an interoperable standard that can be certified. The WiMAX Forum was formed to solve this problem and to promote solutions based on the IEEE 802.16 standards. The WiMAX Forum was modeled along the lines of the Wi-Fi Alliance, which has had remarkable success in promoting and providing interoperability testing for products based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards.
The WiMAX Forum enjoys broad participation from the entire cross-section of the industry, including semiconductor companies, equipment manufacturers, system integraters, and service providers. The forum has begun interoperability testing and announced its first certified product based on IEEE 802.16-2004 for fixed applications in January 2006. Products based on IEEE 802.18e-2005 are expected to be certified in early 2007. Many of the vendors that previously developed proprietary solutions have announced plans to migrate to fixed and/or mobile WiMAX. The arrival of WiMAX-certified products is a significant milestone in the history of broadband wireless.