iTWire - iBurst now an IEEE standard

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iBurst now an IEEE standard

by Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
! The iBurst mobile wireless broadband technology - arguably the first truly mobile broadband technology to go into commercial service when it was launched in Sydney in March 2004 - has finally become an international standard, IEEE 802.20. Related stories Unwired ups wireless broadband data quotes Broadcom backs 60GHz ultra broadband networking group Fixed wireless focus boosts BigAir Optus: Telstra “threatened” by our rapid network expansion Should you fly the capped mobile broadband skies with iPrimus? The IEEE issued a statement on 12 June announcing finalisation of the standard, years behind schedule, but not acknowledging any proprietary underpinnings. That has now been followed by an announcement from Kyocera claiming that: "having been a draft standard since January 2006...iBurst has finally been approved as an 802.20 standard by the IEEE." Masashi Yano, general manager of Kyocera's corporate communication system equipment division, said: “With this industry standard approval, we are expecting to expand the iBurst service area to more and more countries.” The IEEE started work on the standard in 2002 expecting to finalise it by 2004, but a highly dysfunctional working group delayed things badly (see earlier iTWire article ). The technology was touted as being superior to both 3G HSPA and mobile WiMAX because it was designed from the outset to be all IP. According to Kyocera iBurst has already been approved as a standard by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R). It claims that "iBurst has remarkably high capacity, essential for mobile broadband wireless access services, and distributes its high data rates to many mobile PC users. This is enabled by field-proven Adaptive array antenna (AAA) and spatial division multiple access (SDMA) technologies." iBurst claims to be one of the most spectrally efficient wireless broadband technologies. The first commercial network in the world was launched in Sydney in March 2004 by Personal Broadband Australia, now part of Commander Communications, but there are now networks in nine other countries and an international iBurst Association advocating the promotion and development of iBurst technology as a preferred mobile broadband technology. The technology was developed originally by ArrayComm, a company founded by Martin Cooper, widely regarded as the father of cellular radio, but is now being driven primarily by Kyocera . Cooper told the author in 2005 that ArrayComm was working very hard to make iBurst part of 802.20 but admitted that progress was very slow and very political. "At the moment, 802.20 is very open and could be iBurst, but if not we will find another venue to make iBurst a worldwide standard." He said. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to post your comment! Tags See All Tags 802.20 ArrayComm IEEE Kyocera Standards Stuart Corner Wireless broadband Get stories like this delivered daily - FREE - subscribe now