Airspan awarded Batelco Group’s Umniah nationwide Mobile WiMAX deployment in Jordan

Airspan Networks Inc. announced today that it has been awarded a nationwide WiMAX deployment contract to supply the Jordanian carrier Umniah Mobile Company, a subsidiary of the Batelco Group, with fixed and mobile WiMAX solutions. The contract was awarded to Airspan along with its distribution partner, InnoKAT.

Umniah Mobile Company, a major telecom provider in Jordan, is developing a nationwide network to provide fixed and mobile WiMAX services to commercial and residential customers. Umniah aims to be a significant WiMAX operator in Jordan by offering its customers innovation, better value and choices for fixed and mobile WiMAX wireless solutions. Airspan will supply its HiperMAX base stations, EasyST indoor and ProST outdoor subscriber terminals to Umniah who launched 2.5G wireless services in June 2005 covering the Jordanian mobile market. Umniah will use Airspan’s WiMAX technology to launch its voice, data, and high speed internet service within its already established network. Airspan’s WiMAX solution will enable Umniah to offer a bundle of voice and data services, with the addition of mobile WiMAX by software upgrade from the same platform. Read more

Redline and Siemens Collaborate on Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Interoperability

Redline Communications Inc. and Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices, today announced private testing to verify interoperability between Redline and Siemens WiMAX Forum Certified products. The testing is part of the Redline Ecosystem Verification (’REV’) program designed to accelerate the deployment of interoperable WiMAX networks.

“The success of WiMAX depends on the ability of carriers to deliver the services their customers demand,” said Dr. Marc Achhammer, Senior Vice President and Head of WiMAX, Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices. “Today’s WiMAX solutions deliver the fixed and portable capabilities as well as the range of devices that offer a range of choices to WiMAX subscribers, and provide operators the flexibility they need to plan and deploy a profitable network. When complete, our interoperability testing with Redline will ensure carriers have more choice, flexibility and capabilities for their WiMAX networks.” Read more

Japan’s ACCA and NTT DoCoMo Partner on Mobile WiMAX to Acquire 2.5GHz Broadband Wireless Licenses

ACCA Networks Co., Ltd. and NTT DoCoMo, Inc. announced today their basic agreement to partner in a joint venture, ACCA Wireless Co., Ltd., for the provision of broadband wireless services based on mobile WiMAX technology.

The arrangement has been made necessary by the ministry’s decision not to grant 2.5GHz spectrum rights directly to existing operators of third-generation mobile services, such as DoCoMo, in order to encourage new market entrants. Read more

Maravedis Publishes BWA/WiMAX/WiBro Deployment Maps

Broadband wireless analyst firm Maravedis this week published the first of a series of maps showing the top BWA/WiMAX deployments worldwide. The information is derived from the Maravedis WiMAXCounts Operator Tracking Service. This map provides the top deployments and notable trials going on worldwide. Click on the thumbnail or here to obtain the PowerPoint slide.

WiNetworks to Demonstrate Mobile WiMAX 802.16e Solution for Broadcasters

WiNetworks, a pioneer and leader in the development and integration of WiMAX and digital video broadcast network technologies, will demonstrate at IBC 2007 a full line of mobile WiMAX 802.16e equipment specially designed for the Digital Broadcast Operator. The Win-Max family of equipment includes a compact base station, and customer premise equipment, allowing DBS and DVB-T Operators to build a complementary 802.16e mobile WiMAX based wireless network.

WiNetworks patented hybrid DVB/WiMAX technology reuses the existing infrastructure of installed dish, coax and set-top-boxes resulting in low installation costs. Broadcast operators can reduce churn and increase competitiveness by adding triple play and mobile services over a single bill. Read more

Huawei to deploy first Mobile WiMAX network in Saudi Arabia

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (”Huawei”) today announced that Saudi Telecom (“STC”), the largest service provider in Saudi Arabia, has selected Huawei to deploy the first WiMAX 802.16e-based network in the Middle East, covering major cities including Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.

Under this agreement, Huawei will design and deploy an end-to-end WiMAX 802.16e network including Base Station, Access Service Network Gateway, Network Management System, as well as an Authorization, Authentication and Accounting system. Huawei’s end-to-end WiMAX solution integrates the most advanced technologies such as orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), enabling high-quality network coverage and bandwidth capacity. The distributed base station provided by Huawei is easy to install, featuring easy site acquisition and fast rollout. The WiMAX 802.16e-based network features high-quality network coverage and bandwidth capacity satisfying STC’s needs to accommodate an increasing number of broadband subscribers. Read more

LG unveils all-touch screen HSDPA handset for Europe

LG Electronics unveiled its 3G smart phone ‘LG-KS20’ during IFA 2007, which features 12.8mm thickness and 2.8-inch all touch screen display with full browsing capability. Running on Windows Mobile 6.0, the LG-KS20 supports the HSDPA network with download speeds up to 3.6Mbps.

Other features of the 3G smart phone included push email service, 2M camera, MP3 playback, Bluetooth 2.0, cursive script recognition and video calling. It will be available in 4Q 2007 in the European market.

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Samsung unveils revised Mobile WiMAX UMPC (SPH-P9200)

Samsung Electronics unveiled its compact UMPC ‘Deluxe MITs (model: SPH-P9200)’ at the Samsung 4G Forum 2007 in Korea. As a successor to the SPH-P9000 model, it can connect to wireless Internet and VoIP phone via Mobile WiMAX. Running on Windows XP, the SPH-P9200 adopts a 5-inch touch screen, folding QWERTY keyboard and a 30GB HDD.

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Alcatel-Lucent builds first commercial Mobile WiMAX Network in Germany

Alcatel-Lucent is deploying Germany’s first commercial mobile WiMAX network - based on the 802.16e-2005 standard - in the Saar region for VSE NET, a regional telecommunications service provider in Saarbrucken. The project is being conducted in close cooperation with VSE NET, Inquam Broadband - a nationwide license holder in Germany - and Alcatel-Lucent.

VSE NET is establishing the first regional WiMAX network in an area not covered by conventional DSL technology. Work on the network will start in the autumn of 2007, and commercial operation is set to commence in January 2008. Read more

Sprint Awards Samsung New York Deal For XOHM

Sprint Nextel announced Monday that Samsung Telecommunications America has been awarded the New York area market for mobile WiMAX network infrastructure in preparation for Xohm mobile Internet services availability to customers in that region beginning in late 2008.

Sprint is developing with ecosystem partners a nationwide advanced wireless broadband network designed to mobilize the Internet, bring wireless innovation to devices and deliver new mobile multimedia applications to consumer, business and government customers. The mobile WiMAX network can deliver broadband access with speeds up to five times faster than current third-generation wireless networks and will be marketed under the Xohm (pronounced “zoam”) brand. Read more

NextWave Broadband Announces Release of NW1000 Series WiMAX Chipset

NextWave Broadband Inc., a subsidiary of NextWave Wireless Inc. (NASDAQ: WAVE), today announced it has begun shipping samples of its NW1000 Series WiMAX chipset, comprised of the NW1100 baseband system-on-a-chip (SOC), matched NW1200 multi-band RFIC, and associated system software, to consumer electronics and mobile device manufacturers.

NextWave’s NW1000 Series is designed to provide wireless device manufacturers with an advanced platform to develop next-generation WiMAX mobile terminal products. The chipset incorporates numerous NextWave innovations to improve performance, reduce power consumption, lower manufacturing costs, enable advanced mobile-multimedia applications, and allow seamless operation and roaming across worldwide WiMAX frequencies and profiles. Read more

Sprint Nextel announces XOHM brand for WiMAX commercial launch in 2008

Sprint Nextel today demonstrated key technologies and described operational plans to provide unique new services to meet the growing demand for mobile communications during the Sprint Ahead Technology Summit.

The company detailed the expected capabilities and customer benefits of its planned WiMAX services and also announced its market branding for these services. In a separate release today, the company provided an update on its progress in delivering high-performance push-to-talk service, Nextel Direct Connect, on its CDMA network platform. Read more

Option’s HSUPA ExpressCard Garners First FCC Approval

Option N.V. today announced that it has marked a major milestone with the United States Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) final approval of the first High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) data card: the GlobeTrotter EXPRESS HSUPA. The
technical certification of the FCC is mandatory for use on HSUPA networks in the U.S. Following this approval, the wireless broadband data card is now ready to be commercialised in U.S. markets.

The GlobeTrotter Express HSUPA data card is based on QUALCOMM’s Mobile Station Modem MSM7200 product, the first chipset to enable HSUPA. The increased data rates, in both downlink and now uplink modes, offered by HSUPA will enrich mobile broadband access to offer diverse services such as live video streaming, video-sharing services, sending and receiving email with large attachments, user-created content and blogging. Read more

Sprint to offer WiMAX-enabled Nokia N800 Linux tablet

Sprint will offer a Mobile WiMAX-enabled version of Nokia’s N800 Internet Tablet to North American customers next year, LinuxDevices has learned. The new device will support Sprint’s grand scheme of making WiMAX-based 4G wireless services available to over 100 million people during 2008.

Sprint in August of 2006 announced plans to develop and deploy “the first fourth generation (4G) nationwide broadband mobile network,” and said that it had selected Mobile WiMAX (aka IEEE 802.16e-2005) as the wireless technology for the deployment. The company subsequently announced that Intel, Motorola, and Samsung were working on Mobile WiMAX chipsets, and that LG, Samsung, Nokia, ZTE, and ZyXEL were developing consumer devices that would be usable on its new 4G network. Read more

Vodafone joins WiMAX Forum

The WiMAX Forum, an industry-led non-profit organization committed to promoting and certifying interoperable WiMAX products, today announced that Vodafone, the world’s leading international mobile communications group, has become a principal member of the WiMAX Forum.

WiMAX technology is set to allow high-speed internet access from laptops and other mobile devices over larger distances than previous technologies such as Wi-Fi. Read more

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