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Follow UsPORTLAND, USA: The WiMAX Forum, a worldwide consortium focused on global adoption of WiMAX, announced on Wednesday the launch of its Interoperability Testing (IOT) Certification program.
This program would leverage Clearwire Corporation's commercial WiMAX network experience to further ensure interoperability in the 2.5GHz spectrum band, said a press release.
WiMAX Forum said this program is unprecedented because of its ability to accelerate certification of all vendors' products and provide more certainty to operators around the globe that WiMAX' products would efficiently interoperate in a commercial network environment.
The WiMAX Forum has enlisted the help of Clearwire - the provider of WiMAX services in the United States. In addition to contributing its technical expertise, Clearwire will share its extensive commercial network test cases to the WiMAX Forum, which would be used to validate interoperability for all submitted 2.5 GHz mobile WiMAX products, the release added.
As a result, WiMAX vendors would be able to test their WiMAX products against these proven test cases to ensure interoperability with a commercial network environment and rapidly take their WiMAX Forum Certified(TM) solutions to the marketplace.
"With this first-ever industry initiative, the WiMAX Forum and Clearwire together are showing our commitment to the global operator and vendor communities and underscoring how vital WiMAX Forum Certification is to ensuring quality of services and consumer experience," said Ali Tabassi, Clearwire's senior VP of Global Ecosystem and Standards.
He added that they would expect all WiMAX products to become IOT Certified before entering an operator's network.
The interoperability program benefits the participating vendors in several ways. By reducing the cost and timelines associated with completing IOT, this activity translates into a reduction of product evaluation cycles, while allowing vendors to more quickly move products into the commercial marketplace.
Additionally, the WiMAX Forum was the first industry consortium of its kind to certify base stations, and continues to do so while simultaneously offering an interoperability program for operator networks that would increase the operators' confidence levels in certified products.
"Operators around the world are lining up to require that WiMAX products become certified prior to introduction to their network to ensure interoperability," said Ron Resnick, president and chairman of the WiMAX Forum.
"The Clearwire partnership will ensure that 2.5 GHz certified products are tested against expertise learned from a live network test bed, and it is our intention to expand this process to other spectrum bands in the future."