Fujitsu And Navini Unveil WiMax AdvancementsFujitsu And Navini Unveil WiMax Advancements

One of the odd things about WiMax is that it's still rarely available for customer use, while developers continue to roar ahead manufacturing new components and developing advanced research for the nascent wide-area wireless technology.

To wit: On Wednesday Fujitsu said it will ship WiMax baseband system-on-chip (SoC) board packages this quarter, while Navini Networks began demonstrating its advanced smart beamforming technology at the Wireless Communications Association show in San Jose.

Fujitsu Microelectronics America said its partnership with Germany's Hopling Technologies has produced an advanced wireless mesh architecture, named Linux WiMax Board Packages. The firms have been working on the product for several months.

"Fujitsu is the first company to address the growing need for embedding WiMax baseband SoC into our customers' time-to-market for our customers' products," said Manfred Mettendorff, a Fujitsu Microelectronics senior marketing manager, in a statement. "We believe this will spur development worldwide."

Navini said it is demonstrating its smart beamforming signaling technology on its Ripwave MX mobile WiMax platform. Noting that it has more than 70 commercial deployments globally -- but few in the United States -- Navini said its smart beaming technology represents the next level of advancement for WiMax.

The firm said its Smart WiMax combines Smart MIMO and smart beamforming. MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) often involves the use of several antennas in a wireless technology situation; greatly simplified, beamforming involves signal processing technologies combined with arrays of transmitting or receiving transducers.