Combo Wi-Fi-WiMax Technology Gains Ground

A new partnership of companies is demonstrating dual Wi-Fi and Wimax technology aimed at taking advantage of existing Wi-Fi access points and Mobile WiMax, which is beginning to take off.

Using Intel's pioneering technology, Comfone, Alvarion and Iberbanda have produced the roaming technology, according to a Tuesday announcement by Comfone. Successful deployments of the combo technology would likely fill many coverage gaps that have plagued so many municipal Wi-Fi rollouts in the U.S.

The partnership enables service providers to deliver wireless connections by using Intel's WiMax Connection 2250 chip integrated into Alvarion's 4Motion product. The service runs over 3.5GHz spectrum provided by Iberbanda; the 3.5GHz spectrum is the most available spectrum in Europe.

From its vantage point as a supplier of GSM and public WLAN infrastructure, Comfone will provide public WLAN access points. "This demonstration will illustrate how a user, using a single account, will be able to roam between WiMax and WLAN in the future," said Comfone. The company supplies roaming services to more than 300 operators in 125 countries.

A Swiss company, Comfone noted that it supplies wireless capabilities to more than 35,000 hotspots. The features include signalling, data clearing, hubbing, and convergence services, the company noted. "This demo highlights the complementary nature of WiMax and Wi-Fi, and serves as a benchmark for further development of seamless WiMax/Wi-Fi roaming," said Raviv Melamed, general manager of Intel's Mobile Wireless Group, in a statement.Noting that it already covers about 30% of Spain with various projects, Iberbanda said it has already supplied several regions in Spain with a total of 800 WiMax base stations.

The last partner in the alliance is Alvarion, which has supplied more than 3 million wireless units in the world.

Another Wi-Fi and WiMax demonstration was unveiled on Monday. That demo also featured Intel technology and was developed with Nokia and the Nokia Siemens infrastructure company.