Another Cellular Vendor Joins WiMAX ForumAnother Cellular Vendor Joins WiMAX Forum

Ericsson Monday said it is the latest cellular infrastructure vendor to join the WiMAX Forum. It joins other cellular infrastructure vendors Nortel, Motorola, Siemens Mobile and Lucent Technologies as throwing its support to the emerging wireless broadband standard. Nokia also recently rejoined the Forum after previously quitting.

"WiMAX ensures interoperability of the open IEEE 802.16 standard for broadband wireless access," said Karl Thedeen, an Ericsson vice president, said in a statement. "It is a natural part of an operator's Ethernet broadband offering and can also serve as transmission backhaul."

While the Forum has dozens of members, both large and small, membership does not necessarily mean support. For instance, Cisco Systems is listed by the Forum as a member, but it has been highly critical of WiMAX. Similarly, Siemens has expressed support for WiMAX but also has said it will develop infrastructure equipment using competitive FLASH-OFDM wireless broadband technology.

The first WiMAX equipment to be certified by the Forum is expected to be available in the first half of 2005.