ITU set to make WiMAX a 3G standard

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 04 February 2007 16:23

Business IT - Technology

"The general consensus from delegates to the meeting is that WiMAX will soon become recognised as an IMT-2000 technology, and that decision process is now on the fast-track."

According to WiMAX Day, "The exact technology that is being considered for inclusion in IMT is 'IP-OFDMA'. This is an acronym for Internet Protocol - Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access used by the IEEE 802.16e mobility standard, which is otherwise commonly referred to as WiMAX."

WiMAX Day goes on to say that the final decision to include WiMAX in the IMT-2000 family is scheduled for the meeting of the World Radio Conference (WRC-07) in October when spectrum allocation for IMT will be a major topic of discussion. Crunch time, according to WiMAX Day, will be the May meeting of the 8F working group, in Tokyo.

According to a report in Policy Tracker "The strong support for quick action to get WiMAX admitted to IMT-2000 by the end of the Kyoto meeting on May 31 came from major administrations including the US, UK and Australia and has encouraged the WiMAX camp."

It said that the turning point of the Cameroon meeting came when US delegates pushed for the rapid inclusion of the standard into IMT-2000 before October.

The report said that the groups involved would make their final evaluations before the Kyoto meeting, and barring any objections, the final approval should be given at the following meeting on June 25.