WiMAX Approved as 3G Standard
27 October 2007The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has approved WiMAX as a 3G standard. By making WiMAX more credible, the ITU’s approval increases the likelihood that WiMAX will be accepted for deployment worldwide. It’ll make it easier for governments to license spectrum for use by WiMAX technology.
The WiMAX Forum, which is composed of WiMAX developers and supporters, said, “This decision is of global importance to operators, who look to ITU to endorse technologies before they invest in new infrastructure. The decision to approve the WiMAX Forum’s version of IEEE Standard 802.16 as an IMT-2000 technology significantly escalates opportunities for global deployment, especially within the 2.5GHz to 2.69GHz band, to deliver mobile internet to satisfy both rural and urban market demand.
Ron Resnick, WiMAX Forum’s president, said this is the first time a new air interface has been added to the IMT-2000 set of standards since the original technologies were selected nearly a decade ago. 3G solutions based on existing technologies such as W-CDMA, CDMA-2000 and TD-SCDMA were already included in the IMT-2000 set of standards. “The bottom line is that operators across the globe now have the freedom to select the right technology to best meet their business and regional needs,” Resnick said.
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