Taipei’s 2008 WiMAX Expo, June 2 - 6, has two shuttle bus routes linking different Exhibition Halls. All of the 20 shuttle buses are “WiMAX enabled” — simply by being there.
Intel is previewing their full size Asus Centrino 2 notebook with WiMax at the show. No PC card will be required when Intel’s Centrino 2 ships in July or August. The Echo Peak WiMAX card, hidden under the hood, is ready to roll (more or less).
Other announcements at the Taipei WiMAX Expo include:
- ASUS introduced the Eee PC 901 WiMAX-enabled netbook and a couple of WiMAX clients including the WM25E1+, a Wave 1 CPE and the WUSB25E2V2, a WAVE2 USB Dongle.
The WiMax-enabled Eee PC 901 will use WiMax chips from San Jose, Calif.-based GCT Semiconductor, but versions of the Eee PC may also come with the Intel WiMax chipset. Engadget gave one a test drive at the show.
- VIA’s new OpenBook WiMAX reference design includes supports screen resolutions of up to 1024×600, an HD video processor and 8-channel HD audio. GCT is also supplying Via’s WiMax chips.
- Sequans is showcasing its new WiMax chip, the SQN1170, which can fit in an SD card.
- Alcatel-Lucent showcased its turnkey WiMAX radio access networks, applications and CPE.
- Intel Capital boosted its investments in WiMAX with a stake in Green Packet, the parent company of Packet One Networks to deploy Malaysia’s first commercially available nationwide 802.16e WiMAX network by June 2008, said to be the first large-scale commercial deployment of mobile WiMAX in Southeast Asia, and the first large-scale deployment of an 802.16e 2.3GHz WiMAX network outside Korea.
- Five of Taiwan’s licensed WiMAX operators – Global Mobile, First International Telecom (Fitel), Vmax Telecom, Tatung Telecom and Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) – will also tout their forthcoming WiMAX services. Global Mobile, Vmax and FITEL won licenses for northern Taiwan, while Far EasTone, Tatung and Vastar Cable TV System won licenses for the south.
Taipai’s First International Telecom’s WiMAX network (FITEL) expects to have 52 Mobile WiMAX base stations operating in Taipei City by the beginning of June. FITEL has deployed Starent Networks’ solutions to enable high-bandwidth, multimedia services through its mobile WiMAX network.
The Fitel deployment is part of the M-Taiwan project. The M-Taiwan project is a government initiative to accelerate WiMAX ecosystem development and create a city-wide broadband network to support wireless broadband services.
M-Taiwan has been underway for 3 1/2 years and the government’s work, from issuing and deploying spectrum to assisting manufacturers to develop WiMAX equipment, is now largely done. The achievements will be showcased at the Taipei Show. By the year 2010, it is estimated that
wireless network subscribers will reach eight million.
Meanwhile, Asus is announcing its Atom-based 8.9-inch Eee PC 901 and 10-inch 1001 tomorrow at Computex. They’re based on a 1.6GHz Atom processor with 1GB of memory, Bluetooth, WiFi, memory card slot, and a 20GB SSD for Linux builds or 12GB SSD for Windows. It features a 4- or 6-hour battery life depending upon battery. ASUS’ CEO said they’ll be cutting prices on the older Celeron M 701 and 900 models.
Overhyping WiMAX can be dangerous, said Jan Nilsson, president of Far EasTone Telecom. At the WiMAX Forum Operator Summit, global carriers warned that creating unachievable expectations around the capabilities of WiMAX could create the same misconceptions over 3G in its first years of inception.
3G operators and vendors made unrealistic claims about the speeds of UMTS at the turn of the millennium, which were only met when high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) networks were introduced seven or eight years later, said Nilsson.