WiMax World was held last week. I wasn’t there – but I have been digging around to bring us up to snuff. It’s kind of a cliff notes for conference – I’m not saying it would get you an A – but I think it would at least help you pass a test – should you be given a pop quiz on it.

WiMx World was held in Chicago on September 25-27.

Keynote speakers included:

Scott Richardson – Clearwire

The Seattle Times did a nice article on his speech. The highlights they mention include:

Clearwire has about 300,000 subscribers. In August, 41 percent of its customers migrated from cable Internet access and 29 percent from DSL.

Clearwire is starting slowly to roll out mobile WiMax. (Deployment of true mobile WiMax is going well in Portland, Richardson said.)

Richardson said Clearwire anticipates rolling out PC cards that can fit into laptops as early as this year.

Richardson said 80 percent of time spent on the Internet is with a wired computer and 20 percent on a mobile device, but he foresees that eventually flip-flopping.

Richardson said a lot of the complexity in the business will be in the back end of Clearwire’s network, where it handles billing.

Todd Ramsey – IBM

OK I found nothing. Sorry! I think it must be a trick keynote just to keep me searching.

Sean Maloney – Intel

According to the Seattle Times, Maloney stressed, the goal will be open access to the Internet.
“The vast majority of Web sites aren’t adapted for mobile devices, and I don’t think that Web sites or the Internet are going to adapt,” he said. “It is the mobile environment that needs to adapt to the Web, instead of the Internet adapting to mobile.”

Padmasree Warrior – Motorola

According to the Seattle Times she showed off an application that allowed a group of friends to share a video conference online to chat about a TV show being streamed in the same screen. Motorola showed off a Razr look-alike loaded with WiMax. It was used to easily connect to YouTube to watch videos, download a map from Google, or make a two-way video-conferencing phone call, where each user could see what the other’s camera phone was pointing at.

Peter MacKinnon – LG-Nortel Co. Ltd.

The Chicago Tribune talks a bit about MacKinnon’s speech (in an article about Chicago’s plan to upgrade video camera network). “WiMax is disruptive,” MacKinnon said. “It will change the cell phone business model.” He noted that WiMax broadband networks deliver bits at one-fifth to one-tenth the cost borne by today’s mobile phones networks.

Dr. Won-Pyo Hong – Samsung

OK I couldn’t find anything on him – but I learned that Samsung displayed a “butterfly” device with three folding sections, including two that form a full keyboard used with a small screen. (You can see the photo on the Seattle Times article.)

Barry West – Xohm, A Sprint Nextel Business Unit

Telephony Online wrote a nice piece on his presentation. Apparently West revealed plans to incorporate within Xohm location-based services tied to advertising and search and portal services designed by partner Google, all of which could potentially make Xohm’s pipe a little less dumb and add a new revenue stream to the service.

[Ann’s note – well doesn’t that tie in with Google’s interest in the 700 MHz spectrum auction!!]

He also talked about their business plans and billing options – which even I found interesting!

Dr. Mo Shakouri – WiMAX Forum

Again my new friends in Seattle talked to Shakouri and I’ll pass on their notes:
Shakouri said by the end of the year there will be five certification labs around the world. The labs are checking to see if everything works together to certify mobile WiMAX. We are on target for mobile certification for 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz by the end of this year and beginning of next year,” he said. “We expect to get mobile equipment certified in the first half of 2008.” 

Berge Ayvazian – Yankee Group

OK I couldn’t find much except what he was expected to do. My new best friends from Seattle Times said – Yankee forecasts that globally, WiMax subscriptions will increase to 27.7 million in 2011 from 3.4 million last year. In North America, Yankee said the numbers will increase to 7.8 million in 2011 from 1.3 million last year.

You can see all of the speakers here.

Here are some other good blogs and news I found on the conference:

Can we screw up WiMax, too?  – he gives a nice “on the floor” description of the conference. He gives a nice quote from Maloney on WiMAX, “We are at the end of the beginning.”

Wireless Week gives a nice blow by blow of the conference for each day.

Sanity check: Is WiMAX almost here and will it unlock the next stage of the Internet?
One promising quote from the Tech Republic article/blog: I’m glad to report – and you can mark it down in pen – that 2008 will be the year that WiMAX arrives in full force as a new option for Internet access. (This a great article on WiMAX and the conference!)