Mobile WiMAX powers up
Ed Agis, Senior Chair of the WiMAX Forum Certification Working Group and a member of
the WiMAX Technical and Marketing Working Groups talks to Intercomms about the
significance of the WiMAX Forum's Congress Asia 2008 in Singapore
Mr. Ed Agis is a Market Development Manager
for the Mobility Wireless Standards and Technology
Division of Intel. He is the Senior Chair of the WiMAX
Forum Certification Working Group and a member of
the WiMAX Technical and Marketing Working Groups.
He is actively involved in the IEEE 802.16 standards
body and responsible for the development of the
certification testing infrastructure of the WiMAX
Forum. Mr. Agis is also the WiMAX Forum Liasion to
the European Telecommunications Standards
Institute (ETSI).
Prior to joining the Wireless Standards and
Technology Group, Ed was assigned to the Wireless
Product Division (WPD) responsible for marketing
programs strategy and development for the Intel
wireless networking planning strategy.
Mr. Agis joined Intel in January of 2001. Prior to
his current position, Mr. Agis was the Director of
Marketing and Business Unit Manager for Access
Products at Xircom leading the launch of numerous
mobile access products. Before joining Intel, Mr.
Agis also worked for Texas Instruments as the WW
Product Marketing Manager for Advance Systems
Solutions and PCI Bus Products. During his tenure at
Texas Instruments, Mr. Agis led the launch and
market development of TIs PC Card Controller, PCI
Bridge Chips and Low Voltage Logic Chips.
Mr. Agis holds a Bachelors of Science Degree
from the Air Force Academy, graduating Magna cum
Laude in 1976 as well as a Masters of Business
Administration in Management and another in
Operations/Product Marketing from USC/Amber
University.
Q: At Singapore you announced the first eight
certified Mobile WiMAX products. What is the
significance of this development?
A: We have come a long way because now we have
developed the first certified devices that are being
deployed in the Korea Telecom network, enabling
true mobility and providing Internet connectivity
with that mobile solution. What you will see over
time, even with these initial solutions is the
delivery of lot of Internet content via Mobile
WiMAX technology, beginning with enhanced sets
for subscriber stations but eventually gaming
toys, cameras, PDAs and other small form factors
including the use of WiMAX in notebooks.
The other thing that is really significant in
this particular announcement is that we
successfully completed interoperability testing
with four chip sets. That is above and beyond
what the initial requirement is for certification
testing. That means that these vendors have
successfully developed their products and
implement them in accordance with the standards
and tested for l protocol conformance testing, RF
testing and interoperability testing. The reason
that this is so important is because we are the
only consortium for mobile technology that tests
not just the terminals, but also the base stations.
We are providing complete or pair solutions as
being certified, not just one component.
Q: What else was noteworthy at Singapore?
A: What was interesting in Singapore was that we
got to see a lot of the many vendors that are also
working on Mobile WiMAX devices. In the Forum
we have different. 'profiles'. A profile is basically
an RF band, a channel band and a duplex mode.
What we announced in Singapore was the first of
several profiles that we will be bringing to market
in the near future at 2.3MHz. The next will be
2.5GHz. The momentum is rolling. The vendors
are building products to begin certification testing
and you are going to see the introduction of
WiMAX products over time in multiple different
form factors. Based on market research, we are
expecting to see over 1000 devices certified by
2012.
Q: Singapore was described as the Forum's
inaugural exposition. How does it differ from
previous meetings you have held?
A: This is the first Trade Show that the Forum has
come out with that it is strictly WiMAX. We are not
showing any other mobile technologies, just
WiMAX. This has been in development for a while
and our plans are to have three shows a year; one
in the Asia, one in Europe and one in Latin
America. Previously, we have been involved in
other wireless broadband venues which touch
upon WiMAX. This however is strictly WiMAX only.
The show in Singapore is really our coming out
party. The WiMAX Forum Asia Congress 2008 isn't
put on by someone else, it's owned by the WiMAX
Forum. The introduction of the first certified
devices was an important event for the
development of this venue. Also, the 500
members of the WiMAX forum community are who
are really the ones who are behind the show, in
terms of its momentum and the participation that
you see coming to these shows. The next show is
our flagship event - WiMAX Forum Global
Congress - in Amsterdam June 17-18.
Q: How is the certification process developing?
A: We have two phases to get through the
certification - validation and certification. In each one of those there are lessons that are passed on
to the next stage. That is done, because over time,
just as you see in other technologies, we continue
to add test case coverage in term of case studies
that we didn't have before. The work that we went
through in the validation process, where we are
debugging boxes, scripts and test equipment,
improves our efficiency as we get further into
developing additional testing and test case
coverage. It also helps us because, from time to
time you may come across some ambiguity in the
standard and through the validation phase we are
able to identify those and get themt clarified. That
it makes it that much easier for other vendors
who are already mid-flow, in terms of
implementing a solution. All that is in accordance
with the standard and yet those areas that are
ambiguous, have now have been clarified.
Q: Are further refinement to the certification
process planned?
A: We expect to see greater efficiencies as we
automate. Today testing is manually very
intensive. Automation doesn't change the testing
itself but it does improve the efficiency of the
testing over time as we automate. That is pretty
standard across different technologies. When they
start the testing, they are really in the manual
mode of testing and over time they have it fully
automated and that speeds up the testing.
Q: The WiMAX Forum's current network of six
labs will expand to eight by the end of 2008 with
plans to open a certification lab in Brazil in
2009. Are you chasing demand or trying to
anticipate it?
A: My plan is that we stay ahead of the game. I've
done several analyses and our plans are really to
always have the capacity ahead of the pipeline.
We don't want to be in a reactive mode. We want
to have the labs proactively engaged to support
the vendor community as soon as they have
products. We believe that demand will pick up
because we are working on plans to streamline
certification testing for those vendors that are
going to be using pre-certified modules, so they
don't have to repeat all the testing. That means
you will see more products and additional traction
in the use of certified modules in end products.
Q: How many products will be in the next batch
of certified devices?
A: We have a queue on the next profile where we
bring in a group to help us with the validation. On
our next profile there are just under 20 products
that we are working with. What you will see is that
some equipment vendors may also be making
chipset modules . Once the chipset module is
certified in that product, or if they have a
reference design, the chipset module or the
reference designs may be used by other OEMs to
build additional WiMAX devices This will allow you
the number of WiMAX devices to be built up
quicker.
Q: How is the organisation changing?
A: Back in 2003, I remember that we had six
members - we now have over 500 members. Just
about every day we are getting interest in the
WiMAX Forum and requests to join. I don't
anticipate that growth stopping, especially as we
begin to introduce additional certification profiles.
There will then be additional equipment providers
and other equipment manufacturers who will want
to develop WiMAX devices. Even in our plenary
meetings, where all the work groups and all the
members of the WiMAX Forum get together about
three times a year, our attendance continues to
climb. We had over 600 participants at the last
venue that was held in Kona, Hawaii. The next will
be held in Greece.
We are seeing more service providers and
more operators join the Forum. Part of that is
because they are interested in the technology.
They want to know what the technology can do for
them, because there is definitely a cost benefit
analysis when you deploy WiMAX into a network.
WiMAX technology is much more cost effective
and we believe that cost will continue to come
down as we see additional products or we gain
more traction into devices that are brought out to
market. We are based on an open standard. It
isn't proprietary. It is all based on an open
standard in terms of the technology that is being
developed and deployed into networks.
Q: What is WiMAX actually bringing to the public
in terms of services?
A: Considerable capability via the internet in
terms of what you are going to see with WiMAX
technology support with regard to video on
demand. Operators will be providing content via
WiMAX to handsets. This represents additional
revenue streams in terms of the operators
maintaining their customers and bringing on
additional services via WiMAX technology.
For more information: www.wimaxforum.org |