In a meeting room in a Vancouver, British Columbia, hotel last month, several companies betting on the future of WiMAX showed off how the wireless technology could provide multiple VoIP calls, streaming video, interactive gaming using Microsoft's Xbox, and audio and video conferencing.

At the same time, the WiMAX Forum's test lab in Spain began the certification process for hardware from a number of different vendors, with the expectation they'll be certified sometime in November.

Recent WiMAX submissions: Analysis: Wireless broadband operators face 802.16e, 700 Mhz, Here Comes WiMax World

It's significant that the WiMAX Forum has started addressing those issues, first with the creation of a new working group devoted to applications, and second by opening up its membership to content providers. Among its new members is the Walt Disney Company, which sees WiMAX as a means of sending its movies and other content into homes.

The forum also has started positioning WiMAX as "personal broadband" to try to differentiate itself in the marketplace of the future. Ron Resnick, the forum's president, believes WiMAX will be akin to the popularity of cell phones but for data. Making that comparison implies mobility, something WiMAX will not be until 2007 or 2008, but mobility is the direction many forum members want to go. Intel, one of the prime movers behind the technology, expects to begin sampling WiMAX mobile chips in early 2006 and have it in laptops by 2007.

TWO PATHS Although it has one name, WiMAX is going to be two different go-to-market technologies. The first is for fixed wireless and falls under the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard approved last year. The second, for mobile applications, will be under the 802.16e specification expected to be finalized this fall. But the two almost certainly will not be interoperable, so any provider using 802.16-2004 equipment – the equipment being certified now – will have to install 802.16e equipment in the future if it wants to add mobility.

WiMAX could be used in a variety of spectrum, but it is being viewed initially for 3.5 GHz and 2.5 GHz. Korean operators, using a technology they call WiBro (for wireless broadband), plan to use 2.3 GHz spectrum. Korea Telecom (KT) plans an April 2006 commercial launch of WiBro, which is a mobile technology expected to be morphed into the WiMAX 802.16e standard, so its experience could be an indicator of how the technology will play elsewhere in the world.

Won-Pyo Hong, a senior vice president with KT, said at the Vancouver meeting that WiBro will converge telecommunications and media and that WiBro, 3G and Wi-Fi access networks will complement each other. He talked about WiBro using applications like movie downloads, gaming, e-mail, location-based services and online banking. WiBro will launch in Seoul initially and spread to other major cities but will never have nationwide coverage. PDAs are expected to be the main devices, with laptops second.

Hong says KT expects WiBro to be used in nomadic environments with superior data rates to the 3G network, while 3G will provide more mobility.

Mobile WiMAX is expected eventually to provide data rates of about 20 Mbps, although initial implementations may be closer to 1 Mbps to 2 Mbps. Adaptix, a Seattle company with pre-standard gear, conducted a mobile demonstration in Vancouver in which the company said it produced 2.5 Mbps in a vehicle traveling at 40 miles per hour.

Fixed WiMAX has been touted as having the ability to transmit 30 miles or more, becoming a replacement for DSL or cable or for network backhaul. Redline Communications has at least one implementation with pre-WiMAX gear shooting a signal 80 miles over water, according to Keith Doucet, vice president of marketing.

So, what carriers or providers will want to use WiMAX and how will it fit into the wireless broadband landscape?

Phil Marshall, an analyst with the Yankee Group, says mobile wireless broadband services provided by cellular technologies such as W-CDMA and CDMA 1X EV-DO will have about 350 million subscribers globally by 2008. WiMAX likely will offer better performance than 3G where ubiquitous coverage and high mobility are not a priority, he says, especially as an overlay technology.

"Service providers that have 3G spectrum and services can offer an overlaid WiMAX broadband service targeted toward fixed, portable and nomadic subscribers with alternative devices such as laptops," Marshall says in a WiMAX study done for the forum. He adds that WiMAX could "bridge the gap" between applications designed for high-capacity landline networks and the mobile broadband wireless networks.