Wireless chip maker Beceem Communications said it's shipping a mobile WiMax digital base band and integrated radio chipset for handheld devices, despite the fact that the spec for the mobile standard isn't completed yet. Beceem said that when the standard is finalized, its MS120 chipset will be compatible with the standard. Interesting, but there aren't any mobile WiMax networks out there to use it on, and they'll all be proprietary early on, too.
As it stands today, there is still much room for differentiation between vendors using mobile WiMax. Among them are the PHY/MAC implementation, smart antennas, spectrum usage such as frequency reuse and other higher layer differentiation. Like all other standards work, it will become a battle of intellectual property rights, and folks involved with the standards work say there are too many alternatives right now.
For more about Beceem's mobile WiMax chipset:
- check out this article from InfoWorld