If Amsterdam is any indication, mobile WiMAX is already starting to overtake widespread WiFi in large metropolitan centers. Today Worldmax, a privately held Dutch firm, with Alcatel-Lucent, has activated a WiMAX network that covers the hub of the city, providing high-speed broadband to subscribers far beyond the limited berth of WiFi hotspots (Reuters).

This network, termed Aurea, is only a shadow of the scale of deployment the company wishes to have in place within the next few years–by the end of the summer, the entire city; by the a few years’ end, the entire country. The new network boasts activation within 2 working days, and a monthly subscription fee, entailing access to unlimited wireless data, of 20 euros a month. Currently, it needs a WiMAX PC card and USB adapter, but as soon as Intel (a large investor in Worldmax) produces its WiMAX-compatible notebook chips, users will have all the technology they need, right out of the box (Edubourse). Quite the efficient relationship!

Worldmax, Alcatel-Lucent, and Intel intends to showcase their new system with live feeds from taxis and cruise ships at the WiMAX Forum Global Congress, which, in fact, just started today. Whether their network lives up to expectation remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: Worldmax definitely knows how to kick off an event.

The WiMAX Forum has recently granted eight mobile WiMAX products with their certified seal of approval. According to Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, WiMAX Forum Board Member and Vice President of Marketing:

This is a major milestone for WiMAX Forum. The industry has moved from standardization, to the products, and now commercialization…The biggest challenge for the industry was the ecosystem of vendors building products that can work with each other in a real open environment. This was the biggest hurdle that the industry was able to overcome, to be able to get multivendor products, and building real products. Overall we are seeing good industry traction. We are excited that after all of these years, we are now starting to see real products. This is the proof, the industry is maturing, and we’re not talking about paper works anymore.

Obtaining interoperability is definitely a step towards success for WiMAX but many are less optimistic and excited than Shakouri. The development of WiMAX has been slow despite the need for first mover advantage over LTE, and the certification for WiMAX products has been impatiently awaited by vendors. Unfortunately, the eight products announced as certified by the WiMax Forum only support 2.3GHz and Wave 1. The 2.3GHz frequency is used in Korea, but the rest of the world will probably use either 2.5GHz or 3.5GHz. With Wave 1, the eight certified products will only support basic features so vendors are pushing for the WiMAX Forum to certify products that support Wave 2 especially since network installation has begun for some. While it is very exciting that certification is happening, when it comes to WiMAX, everything needs to be faster.