WiMAX Laptops Coming in Late 2006

March 08, 2006

Intel Corp.’s mobile platforms group is ramping WiMAX faster than originally thought.

The company at its spring Intel Developer Forum announced 802.16e integrated mobile WiMAX technology, specifically a mobile WiMAX PCMCIA card, for the second half of this year. The technology, which Intel will use for WiMAX-enabled laptops, was originally planned for a 2007 release.

The technology is designed to serve the 2.3/2.5GHz band, which is the favorable band for Asia.

“We work toward standards and that same desire was behind Wi-Fi. There were many people who said Wi-Fi would not become a global standard so we could get a global band for Wi-Fi” said Intel Executive VP Sean Maloney during his afternoon keynote. “Over the last year, we’ve been doing the same thing on WiMAX. We’ve been working hard to come up with a global standard frequency band. We are now at the point that there is a clear collection around the 2.3/2.5GHz, 3.5GHZ and 5GHz bands. It looks likely that the planet will be able to be covered using those three bands.”

Further, Maloney showcased the first single-chip multi-band Wi-Fi/WiMAX radio, codenamed Ofer. “The objective is that over the next three years these two technologies will merge,” he said, noting Ofer will utilize the 2.3/2.5GHz 3.5 and 5 GHz bands. “This is a very important first step, a radio that is capable of handling those three bands.”