As for mobile WiMAX announcements in June, Nokia agreed to work with Intel to help complete the mobile WiMAX standard (IEEE 802.16e) and to eventually develop mobile equipment as well as infrastructure equipment to support the mobile WiMAX standard. This is notable because, until now, Nokia has had a fairly ambivalent stance toward WiMAX. Intel and ArrayComm, a leader in smart antenna technology, announced a collaboration to incorporate smart antenna capabilities into the IEEE 802.16 standard, with Intel planning to support ArrayComm's techniques in future IEEE 802.16e chipsets. Though few networks today employ smart antenna technology, it is viewed as an effective means of improving the performance and capacity of wireless networks. Navini Networks announced a line of products, including client and base station equipment, based on IEEE 802.16e. The client device will be available by the end of the year, with a PC Card modem and base station equipment following in 2006. Finally, Sprint entered into an agreement with Motorola to jointly test Motorola's equipment in its 2.5-GHz spectrum band. In May, Sprint had said it would work with Intel to develop mobile WiMAX capabilities and use them to deliver consumer-oriented multimedia services.

Additionally, we have the general development of a company doing anything with broadband wireless now calling its equipment "Pre WiMAX," lending WiMAX legitimacy by suggesting that it's not really broadband wireless if it's not WiMAX. To be fair, most of the companies using the "Pre WiMAX" term do intend to deliver WiMAX products.

So where is WiMAX really? WiMAX actually is in two very different places. The fixed version, based on IEEE 802.16-2004 (sometimes referred to as IEEE 802.16d), is materializing, with chipsets now available, vendors planning to do initial interoperability testing during the second half of this year and products becoming generally available during 2006. This is what the Qwest and AT&T trials will be using, with the most likely applications being DSL-type services in areas underserved by DSL and local telephone bypass, which will be a little trickier because it will probably require VoIP. Smaller ISPs may also jump onto this bandwagon, but since most don't have licensed spectrum, these companies will likely do this on a niche basis using the 5.8-GHz unlicensed band. Products in this band will also be available for private deployments. This is all real, and if the technology works as advertised, we may start to see real commercial service from operators beginning in 2006. Initial pro