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WiMAX, WiMAX, WiMAX you may be shown all the love of a red headed stepchild while we all swoon, go week at the knees and generally moisten when thinking about 3G HSDPA but the IEEE still loves you...

The terminally slow standards body – yes, the one responsible for delaying all our 802.11n wireless connections – seems have had its thinking cap on when it comes to the poorly rolled out, barely used WiMAX having agreed the benchmarks for its evolution.

The result is ‘802.16m’ a (potential) new standard which it claims will have data transfer speeds of up to an amazing 1Gbps yet still remain backwards compatible with existing WiMAX devices. Furthermore the body also says the new protocol will meet the ITU’s requirements for 4G – the successor to 3G which is still very much on the drawing board – leading to a possible unification in the (far) future.

Of course while the IEEE still struggles to get 802.11n out the door after literally years of negotiations we should all remain realistic about such grand plans at this stage but the speeds on the table aren’t to be sniffed and sometimes we have to be positive and play the odds that one day the IEEE will get its act together.

I hear Ladbrokes has starting taking bets at 12,000,000:!.

Link:
The IEEE 802.16 Working Group – when you see its website it will explain a lot.

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