Samsung and ETRI demonstrate world's first live 'mobile WiMAX evolution'

October 7, 2008

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and ETRI announced the live demonstration of mobile WiMAX evolution, the next generation mobile WiMAX technology at ‘ITU-R Seoul Meeting,’ Oct. 7 to 15, 2008.

Mobile WiMAX evolution system provides the enhanced data speed 4 times faster than the speed of current Mobile WiMAX technology while improving the efficiency of frequency allocation. It is compatible with currently available mobile WiMAX devices so that users of ‘Mobile WiMAX evolution’ service can communicate without any hassle with legacy Mobile WiMAX devices.

Mobile WiMAX evolution provides downlink peak rate of 149Mbps and uplink peak rate of 43Mbps, which means that users can download a MP3 file (4Mb) in 0.2 second and a movie file (700 Mb) in 37 seconds.

Mobile WiMAX evolution incorporates Multi-User MIMO technology, the next generation MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology to increase the efficiency of frequency usage. MIMO technology is regarded as one of the most promising next generation mobile technologies.

Commercial Samsung Mobile WiMAX devices and the newly developed proto-type terminal were used in the demonstration. For this demonstration, Samsung played a major role to develop the system equipment while ETRI had an important role to develop the proto-type terminal.

“Commercialization of Mobile WiMAX evolution will vitalize Korean IT industry which is slow in growth nowadays,” said Moonki Choi, head of ETRI. “To secure more core technologies, strong support and interest from the industry is needed,” he added.

“Samsung has stood out in the world as a leader of mobile WiMAX and prove our leadership again with this demonstration,” said Geesung Choi, President of Samsung Electronics Telecommunications Network Business. “Throughout the close partnership with ETRI, we can give confidence to global operators about the great potential of Mobile WiMAX technology and hope that more operators consider Mobile WiMAX as their next generation mobile technology.”

With more than 500 telecom officials and organization representatives related to standardization from 150 countries, ‘ITU-R Seoul Meeting’ includes workshop about IMT-advanced system and the 3rd WP5D Meeting. During the ‘ITU-R Seoul Meeting,’ Samsung delivered OFDMA-based 4G technology, and ETRI brought ‘NOLA’ (New Nomadic / Local Area Wireless Access) to the international stage to verify the prestige as a telecommunication powerhouse.

Samsung plans to provide commercial mobile WiMAX evolution system by 2011.

Source: Samsung Electronics