| At an inaugural
meeting in Paris, founding members Unwired Australia, Network
Plus (Nomad) Mauritius, UK Broadband, Irish Broadband, Austar
Australia/Liberty Group, Telecom New Zealand, WiMAX Telecom
Group, Enertel, and Woosh Telecom announced the launch of the
WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance (WiSOA), the first global organisation
composed exclusively of companies that own spectrum and operate
services in the WiMAX bands.
The work of WiSOA will be fundamental to connecting the next
billion users to a worldwide WiMAX broadband network.
WiSOA also announced its intention to sign the first international
WiMAX roaming agreement in December. This roaming agreement
will cover all WiMAX services and operate in all WiMAX frequency
ranges. The agreement will act as the backbone of a future
global WiMAX network and adheres to the 802.16e standards.
The importance of global roaming has been proven with GSM.
Today there are 25,000 roaming agreements worldwide generating
over $25 billion in revenue every year.
"WiMAX is a disruptive technological breakthrough in
the telecommunications sector, and will deliver personal broadband
to enable users to access the Web, make telephone calls, watch
videos and play music," said Steve R. Cosser, chairman
of WiSOA. "WiSOA was established to facilitate the adoption
of WiMAX globally, and with its exclusive membership of spectrum
owners only, is in a unique position to do so."
WiSOA is an operator-driven alliance with clear commercial
goals. It has parallels with similar successful industry alliances
such as GSM-A and the cable and telephony industry associations.
It will complement the work of the WiMAX Forum and work closely
with them to accelerate WiMAX deployment worldwide.
To obtain daily updates and information about WiMAX by email,
you can register to the WISOA daily newsletter here |
