Broadband wireless standards

Current fixed wireless WiMAX products are made compliant with IEEE 802.16d or 802.16-2004 specs. But future WiMAX products (to be launch late 2006 or early 2007) are going to be based on the 802.16e specs, which has not yet been ratified by the IEEE. 802.16e would be used for both fixed and mobile access, while 802.16d is only for fixed access. The issue is that 802.16e products will not be backwards compatible with products based on the existing 802.16d specs.  This could set major WiMax deployments back months -even years.

Another fixed wireless standard (for WLAN) is the 802.11n. It is made for offering far higher data transfer rates than the current 802.11a/g standards, with potential rates of 108 Mbit/s. After months of internal fighting between two groups (TGn Sync and wWise ) for different technical proposals, they are promoting a joint proposal at the IIEEE meeting in November. With their solution, the resulting standard could offer far greater data rates, perhaps up to 600Mbit/s.