SMART Alliance Launched by Navini, Beceem, Fujitsu, Runcom

TAIPEI, Taiwan, October 25 /PRNewswire/ --

- Advances Beamforming, Beamformed MIMO technology and multi-vendor CPE 
devices

In an effort to drive harmonized system performance and interoperability 
of Smart Antenna systems, Navini, Beceem, Fujitsu and Runcom announce the 
formation of the "SMart Antenna RF Test" Alliance (SMART). This alliance has 
been formed to promote the adoption and implementation of Beamforming (BF) 
and Beamformed MIMO (BF + MIMO) which are included in the 802.16e-2005 
specification published by the IEEE and adopted by the WiMAX Forum for Mobile 
WiMAX certification under Wave 2. Smart Antenna systems are already deployed 
in commercial Mobile WiMAX networks today.

"The capacity and coverage benefits of combining Beamforming with MIMO
are very compelling offering up to double the capacity with twice the
coverage of non-beamformed systems," said Sai Subramanian, Navini's vice
president of Product Management. "This Alliance ensures broad availability of
CPE devices that have full capability of Beamforming and Beamformed MIMO."

The SMART Alliance will publish a system performance baseline for the
mandatory Smart Antenna features adopted by the WiMAX Forum(1) for Mobile
WiMAX.

The founding Charter members of the SMART alliance are:

-- Navini Networks. Navini leads the Beamforming task group, part of the
       Certification Working Group in the WiMAX Forum.
    -- Beceem Communications. Beceem has been an outspoken Smart Antenna
       proponent in the IEEE and WiMAX Forum working groups and was the first
       to offer a commercial Mobile WiMAX terminal chipset that supports the
       WiMAX Forum Wave 2 Smart Antenna feature set.
    -- Fujitsu Microelectronics America. Fujitsu recently participated in the
       first multivendor interoperability demonstration of Beamformed MIMO
       over Smart WiMAX, in partnership with Navini. Fujitsu is a member of
       the Beamforming task group in the WiMAX Forum's Certification Working
       group.
    -- Runcom Technologies. Runcom has long been a supporter of Beamforming
       and MIMO, which the company recognizes as a smart way to obtain
       improved overall performance of WiMAX.

SMART Alliance members will collaborate on implementation details to
optimize performance and open their field testing labs to other members for
performance interoperability testing. Performance test results will be shared
to ensure Smart Antenna technology deployments of the highest possible system
performance while maintaining compatibility with the WiMAX Forum profiles and
certified products.

This will not replace or alter the tests and certification processes
already defined or planned by the WiMAX Forum, but will supplement them to
ensure that multi-vendor products with Beamforming + MIMO can be implemented
with predictable performance and full interoperability. The WiMAX Forum's
certification testing is limited to proving multi-vendor interoperability
through conformance to a defined profile specification. The SMART alliance is
open to all WiMAX Forum members interested in the benefits of Smart Antenna
systems.

(1) "WiMAX Forum" is a registered trademark of the WiMAX Forum. "WiMAX,"
         the WiMAX Forum logo, "WiMAX Forum Certified," and the WiMAX Forum
         Certified logo are trademarks of the WiMAX Forum. All other 
         trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.



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