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Mobile working Toolkit

Intel gets behind 'Wi-Fi on steroids'

David Meyer ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 24 Jul 2006 13:00 BST

...that may be a discussion point, but again the technology-neutrality point of view says that if technology exists, and it's a good fit for providing services, then it should be permitted to do that.

Long-term evolution and 4G are all looking at OFDM as a technology, which forms the basis for WiMax already — what the intersection part of those two viewpoints are, I don't know.

How great has vendor interest been in Rosedale II?
We're sampling customers now. We have 10 who've announced publicly — they've all committed to build products based on Rosedale II. We're expecting a production product later this year.

And will that product be WiMax Forum certified?
It's a question of when companies put our products through the certification process based on our silicon. It doesn't stall the deployment at all — it’s great to have industry and ecosystem support behind it.

What's the way forward for mobile WiMax now that you've announced Rosedale II?
Rosedale II fits into the residential gateway market. We will next see PC cards for laptops, and then integration into the Centrino platform… probably at the back end of 2007, or the beginning of 2008, however we need to intersect to the point where there are actually networks to run those devices on.

Our main focus is laptop technology. Some of the other silicon vendors, such as Samsung, are looking at trialling handheld devices — some trials are happening already in Korea. Consumer electronics will probably come slightly later than laptops due to their lower power and smaller form factor.

How is the relationship between mobile WiMax and its Korean cousin, WiBro, working out?
We have convergence on WiBro. They added some great pieces to the WiMax specification and we helped them with some of the work they were doing. WiBro is one of the profiles of the WiMax Forum — it was a great win-win situation.