Approval draws near for WiMAX 2 standard

WiMAX is still in its infancy here in the US, so it may come as a surprise that WiMAX 2 is already approaching the final stages of development. According to recent reports, the standard is expected to gain approval by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) this coming November.

If all goes to plan, IEEE should begin certifying devices next year, with network rollout expected in 2012. Despite all the fancy new network hardware, WiMAX 2 will be backwards compatible with original WiMAX devices, so HTC EVO 4G owners (and soon-to-be Samsung Epic 4G owners) need not worry.

With download speeds theoretically approaching the 1Gbps mark, WiMAX 2 will undoubtedly be a huge step forward for mobile broadband – especially considering many early subscribers will probably be transitioning directly from 3G devices. So here’s to hoping the Mayans were wrong about 2012. We’d hate to miss out on all the upcoming WiMAX 2 goodness.

source: Computerworld via Gizmodo