UK's First Pilot Mobile WiMAX Network Launch Scheduled in Maidstone

Britain's Mobile WiMAX Acceleration Group (M-WAG) is about to launch its first mobile WiMAX network in Maidstone, Kent, in April 2008.

UK's Mobile WiMax Acceleration Group (M-WAG), a consortium of companies showcasing the business plan for mobile WiMAX, is to bring Britain's first mobile WiMAX trial services above 2.5GHz in the town of Maidstone, in Kent.

The service will start operating in April 2008 and will be utilized to carry out multi-functional consumer-focused trials via mobile WiMAX. The service will include 7.5 square kilometer from the middle of Maidstone, which has over 75,000 individuals and 4,500 companies.

Maidstone Borough Council's IT manager, Dave Lindsay, said that the Maidstone Borough Council has constantly tried to be progressive and is ready to be connected with innovative technologies that could assist them to enhance the distribution of the present services and permit them to start others, as reported by ComputerWeekly on February 11, 2008.

Mobile WiMAX is a comprehensive, high-bandwidth wireless network that has already established its effectiveness in third world nations such as Pakistan, where wired infrastructure is hardly available. But it has still to create some impression in Europe, where 3G-supported technologies such as HSDPA are satisfying similar requirements. In spite of this, mobile WiMAX has a lead over LTE since it is present in usable gadgets now.

British IT authorities claimed that by utilizing mobile WiMAX, consumers would also stand to gain as being a symmetrical service, it can provide faster download speeds (theoretically).

Moreover, mobile WiMAX is at present not accessible in Britain since a spectrum is yet to be allotted to it. However, this situation seems to be undergo a change when Ofcom puts up frequencies for auction later in 2008, which were initially assigned for extending 3G networks but given to mobile WiMAX networks under the 'neutral technology' rule of the regulator. The public sale that was fixed for spring 2008 is now likely to be scheduled between June and August 2008.

Kieren Ashlee, Director of LTE Market Development at Motorola, while talking to ZDNet.co.uk at the Mobile World Congress on February 11, 2008 in Barcelona, asserted that a "new mobile WiMAX operator" would emerge if the technology succeeds in acquiring the spectrum in the forthcoming Ofcom auction, as reported on February 11, 2008 by ZDnet.