Motorola, Nortel, others help kick off WiMAX show

WiMAX World USA is underway this week in Chicago and, not surprisingly, vendors rushed out news of their exploits, or plans for such exploits, in the mobile broadband arena in conjunction with the show.
One might require an extensive cheat-sheet to grasp the technical definitions provided, but the exuberance over a new if nascent market was unmistakable.
Among the announcements:
–Motorola Inc. showcased its WiMAX chipset for handheld devices-with “controlled, application-centric architecture”-to support 3G and “4G” devices. (The modem is designed for WiMAX 802.16e Wave 1.0 and 2.0 compliance, and supports advanced MIMO matrix A and B antenna configurations, in case you were curious. Motorola dubbed it “revolutionary.”)
–Of potential interest to air travelers, ITT Corp. and Nortel Networks Ltd.’s Government Solutions business will jointly pursue development of a WiMAX chip intended to serve a satellite-based air traffic control system for the Federal Aviation Administration set for 2009 deployment. (The solution will be based on the 802.16-2005 standard, if you have to know.)
–Alcatel-Lucent and Kyocera Wireless Corp. will develop WiMAX technology that links the former’s 802.16-2005 infrastructure to the latter’s handsets, with compatibility for handoffs between WiMAX, cellular and Wi-Fi networks. Kyocera is one of a number of handset makers gearing up for the WiMAX standard.
–MobiTV Inc. said it will dazzle WiMAX World attendees with demos of TV and video services over mobile, PC and set-top box devices via a WiMAX network. (MobiTV’s solutions run on the 802.16e standard, for those who must know.)
–Wavesat said that it and partner IBM Corp. are developing WiMAX chipsets (802.16e, if you must ask) aimed at consumer electronics devices that will benefit from broadband-a “landmark,” according to Wavesat.
–Aperto Networks touted its WiMAX solutions operating in the 5.8 GHz, license-exempt band. They include base stations and subscriber units. (Sample bullet point: Aperto’s solutions will have dynamic frequency selection radar detection capability that conforms to both FCC and ETSI EN 301-893 v1.3 1 requirements. Yea!)
–Alvarion Ltd. said that, in tandem with Intel Corp., it would demonstrate its own Web 2.0 applications over a mobile WiMAX network (802.16e, for the curious) at the show, scheduled to run today through Thursday.