The U.S. Army's Communications Electronics Research & Development Engineering Center (CERDEC) is expected to spend several months evaluating mobile WiMAX for possible military use, according to Samsung, which is supplying the equipment. CERDEC will study whether the army can use mobile WiMAX equipment in a military environment. The army's tests will take place at the Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) On-The-Move experimentation facility, in Fort Dix, New Jersey. According to local media reports, U.S. Department of Defense visited Korea last October and were given a demonstration of WiBro, WiMAX's cousin.
It's no doubt that a deal with Samsung, which jumped on the WiMAX bandwagon early, could be a boon for the Korean company, which struggled to make a presence on the cellular infrastructure side in the U.S. market. It's one of the companies supplying equipment to Sprint. But remember that WiMAX isn't fully cooked on the mobile side. Factors like MIMO characteristics, channel size, adaptive antennas, fixed/mobility are not defined by the WiMAX standards.
For more about the army's interest in WiMAX:
- read this article from IDG News Service