To bring the first WiMAX-compliant system to Canada, WiMAX silicon developer Wavesat Inc. has announced a partnership with Vcom Inc., formerly WaveCom Electronics Inc., a leading designer and manufacturer of wireless telecom products. The system will be part of a field trial scheduled for this summer.

"Our partnership with Wavesat offers us a unique opportunity to be first to market with an 802.16-2004 compliant system," said Surinder Kumar, VCom CEO and founder. "The success of this field trial pilot will allow both our companies to showcase our leading-edge wireless products in Canada and around the world."

"We’re thrilled to announce a first field test of a WiMAX-compliant system based on Wavesat’s reference kit and using our Evolutive WiMAX DM256 chip," stated Guy Côté, Wavesat’s director of international sales. "This is another validation of our strategy and efforts to lead the path with WiMAX-compliant technology."

According to the partners, VCom is the exclusive developer and supplier of the wireless technology to be used in the pilot to undertake broadband WiMAX wireless network development in Canada. In fact, the WiMAX system will be deployed in the city of Kamloops in British Columbia, Canada. The service provider is Navigata Communications, a subsidiary of SaskTel Group, a Canadian telco. It will offer data rates of between 512 kilobits per second (kbps) and 3 megabits per second (Mbps) and employ radio frequency in the 3.5-GHz band. VCom is aiming the service at users within a 25 km radius of its towers.

Recently, Wavesat Inc and Atmel Corp. inked a deal to develop compatible baseband and RF chips for the 802.16 market as early as the fourth quarter. This teamwork agreement for a WiMAX chipset will feature Wavesat’s Evolutive DM256 WiMAX baseband ASIC and Atmel’s WiMAX compliant radio. Atmel’s radio, under development now, will have variants covering the 2.5/3.5-GHz licensed bands. These two chips are designed to interface seamlessly with Wavesat’s PHY solution to simplify WiMAX system designs by providing a fully compatible WiMAX solution that includes the PHY layer as well as the radio transceiver.

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