WiMAX: The Next 3G Standard
Looks like the ITU-T is making the popular wireless broadband radio technology - WiMAX, the latest in the elite circle of radio technologies dubbed 3G (or Third Generation Mobile) or IMT-2000. Here is the scoop from ITWire.
There is a good chance that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will allow mobile WiMAX to be included in its range of 3G technologies, collectively known as IMT-2000. Such a move would bring considerable benefits by allowing WiMAX to operate in globally allocated frequency bands, allow it to be used to complement other 3G technologies, enable global roaming and reduce equipment costs.
According to the WiMAX Forum, in a new White Paper “WiMAX and IMT-2000″ “including IP-OFDMA (mobile WiMAX) within the IMT-2000 family of radio transmission technologies will put mobile WiMAX on a comparable worldwide footing with EV-DO, HSPA, and other recent and planned enhancements to 3G technology. This will offer operators an additional migration path to consider as they strive to add network capabilities to support a larger suite of value-added broadband services.”
This has emerged from the rumor mill for quite sometime already. WiMAX is even being positioned by some operators such as Sprint-Nextel in the United States as an alternative radio access network (RAN). However, most of the literature I read point to WiMAX as a 4G mobile technology because of its use of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) technology. This technology is considered a cut above the existing Wideband CDMA technologies such as WCDMA and CDMA2000.
More technologies mean more choices. However, I believe it would be truly revolutionary if a form of mesh wireless networking technology be introduced as an official mobile technology radio access network. If the frequency/spectrum used where unlicensed then it would even be more so.
