The WiMAX Forum announced that 13 additional Mobile WiMAX devices have been designated as WiMAX Forum Certified following rigorous testing to ensure that each product meets strict interoperability and conformance to standards. In addition, the WiMAX Forum released a white paper focusing on the WiMAX Forum certification program, which includes an outline of the testing process and a certification roadmap for WiMAX products.

Since June 2008, 13 additional devices have been awarded the WiMAX Forum Certified status in the 2.5 GHz frequency band including four base stations and nine subscriber stations from Alcatel-Lucent, GCT Semiconductors, Huawei Technologies, Motorola, NEC, POSDATA, Redline Communications, Samsung, Telsima and ZTE Corporation. More than a dozen more products are currently undergoing certification testing to support the more than 407 commercial WiMAX deployments in 133 countries today.

“WiMAX devices and networks have the most extensive certification and interoperability testing in the industry in place to guarantee network performance and consumer satisfaction,” said Ron Resnick, president and chairman of the WiMAX Forum, during his keynote at WiMAX World 2008 in Chicago. “WiMAX is the only 4G technology operating commercially today and currently available spectrum gives WiMAX vendors the potential to provide service to four billion people. WiMAX technology supports a broad range of applications and usage models, from connecting remote villages in India to mobile Internet in downtown Baltimore with much lower cost per bit than other technologies.”

In June 2008, the WiMAX Forum added four base stations and six mobile station modules (also known as terminals) operating in the 2.5 GHz frequency band from eight WiMAX Forum member companies to its registry, including Airspan Networks, Alvarion Ltd., Beceem Communications Inc., Intel Corporation, Motorola Inc., Samsung Electronics Company, Ltd., Sequans Communications and ZyXEL. All of the newly certified 2.5 GHz mobile station modules passed the mandatory MIMO testing for interoperability.

The most recent certified mobile devices come from its WiMAX Forum Designated Certification Labs (WFDCLs) in Herndon, Virginia; Taipei, Taiwan; and Seoul, Korea. The WiMAX Forum's current network of six labs in China, Korea, Spain, U.S. and two in Taiwan will expand to eight in early 2009 with additions in India and Japan to handle the anticipated certification demand. The WiMAX Forum also plans to open a certification lab in Brazil in 2009.

Products achieving Mobile WiMAX certification go through rigorous testing to ensure they meet the interoperability and conformance to standards of the WiMAX Forum. With growing interest in the testing process and WiMAX Forum certification infrastructure, the WiMAX Forum has released a white paper that covers a number of certification topics, including value propositions of certification, milestones, the certification roadmap, pre-certification modules and more.

“The WiMAX Forum is proud of the high level of interoperability of products that receive the WiMAX Forum Certified designation,” said Resnick. “We want to share our certification program with the industry and demonstrate the robustness of our resources and infrastructure that gives us the ability to push a large number of WiMAX products through testing while maintaining the high standards that our members expect.”

WiMAX is the only technology to certify base stations and terminals to ensure that interoperability is carried across all levels of the WiMAX network when WiMAX Forum Certified products are used in a deployment.

The WiMAX Forum forecasts that more than 1,000 products will undergo Mobile WiMAX certification testing by 2011, representing an influx of new consumer devices and infrastructure equipment to support continued rapid WiMAX user adoption in the 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz, and 3.5 GHz frequency bands.