The WiMAX Forum announced the first ten Mobile WiMAX products received the WiMAX Forum Certified Seal of Approval for the 2.5 GHz profile (titled MP05) at the WiMAX Forum Global Congress in Amsterdam. The WiMAX Forum also revealed its roadmap for 3.5 and 2.3 GHz equipment certification during the show, with plans for equipment in the 3.5 GHz band to achieve certification by the end of 2008.

Following months of rigorous testing to ensure that each product met the strict WiMAX Forum interoperability and conformance standards, the announcement included 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, 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 protocols.

These 2.5 GHz products were certified at the WiMAX Forum’s lead certification testing laboratory, which is operated by AT4 wireless in Malaga, Spain. Products achieving Mobile WiMAX certification were tested for functionality that supports mobility through rigorous testing including interoperability amongst vendor equipment and MIMO capabilities.

The WiMAX Forum estimates that more than 100 Mobile WiMAX products will be certified by the end of 2008, and by 2011 more than 1,000 products will undergo Mobile WiMAX certification. The WiMAX Forum plans to stay ahead of the demand for certification with a robust global lab infrastructure, including six WiMAX Forum partner labs that are now open and ready to accept products for certification testing in China, Korea, Spain, U.S., along with two labs in Taiwan, ADT and TTC/CS. The WiMAX Forum plans to open two more certification labs by the end of 2008 in India and Japan and an additional lab in Brazil in 2009 in order to support the anticipated growing demands in those regions.

The WiMAX Forum Subscriber and User Forecast Study projects that by 2012 there will be more than 133 million WiMAX users globally and approximately 70 percent of forecasted WiMAX users will utilize mobile and portable WiMAX devices to access broadband Internet services.