WiMAX Global Roaming Alliance (WGRA) Grows

June 29, 2005

In less than thirty days the WiMAX Global Roaming Alliance (WGRA) has grown from three initial members to fifteen named members around the world. Beyond the early named membership the WGRA has approved prospective commercial and governmental applications for participation in later Task Force activities and is processing over thirty additional applications from throughout the wireless broadband supply chain.

The WGRA has been formed for the benefit of commercial entities, state and city governments, WISP's, equipment manufacturers, and other parties that can benefit from being a part of a group that is dedicated to the simplified distribution of competitive, ubiquitous wireless broadband services in major metropolitan areas and rural locations. The WGRA can be joined at no charge at this time by qualified candidates.

Eric Engbers, Chairman, stated "We are committed to the mass deployment of global WiMAX networks and as such we want to ensure that WiMAX has the cleanest path to market possible. Wi-Fi roaming is still not doing as well as it should be because there was inadequate collaboration early on in the deployment process. Learning from those issues and applying that knowledge early in the WiMAX lifecycle should allow for a much steeper adoption curve and more cost-effective and efficient roaming engagements around the world.