Tatung InfoComm and Aicent Initiate World’s First WiMAX Roaming Exchange

(Business News & Technology News, 26 Oct 2009)

Aicent Inc. (www.aicent.com) and Tatung InfoComm (www.tatung.net.tw) announced today the first-ever internetwork roaming between WiMAX networks. Using Aicent’s WiMAX Roaming eXchange (WRX), executives from a non-Asian WiMAX operator successfully used a USB WiMAX dongle together with a username and password combination and embedded credentials from their company’s 4G WiMAX service to gain access to the Tatung InfoComm WiMAX network in Taiwan. This successful connection marks the first time international roaming between WiMAX networks has been achieved.
“This event is a key technical breakthrough in substantiating the fast deployment of high-speed WiMAX service to meet global market needs,” said Peter Yen, president and CEO of Tatung InfoComm. “To fulfill the promise of WiMAX, operators will have to partner together and allow subscribers to access each other’s networks, and Aicent facilitates these important relationships. With WiMAX roaming, Tatung InfoComm customers from Southern Taiwan will be able to take their high speed wireless broadband service with them all around the world.”
Tatung InfoComm is the first commercially-launched operator in Taiwan, beginning service in April this year in Penghu Island, then quickly expanding to Kaohsiung three months later in July. Tatung InfoComm is committed to staying ahead of the market as a versatile and leading mobile broadband operator offering convergence of multimedia, telecommunication and digital broadcasting.
For roaming to be commercially viable, it has to be transparent and effortless to the end user. In this trial, Tatung InfoComm wanted to ensure that subscribers from other WiMAX networks could use their equipment, in this case a USB dongle that plugs into a laptop, with the same username and password used for the home network to gain easy access to the Tatung InfoComm network. Their tests met all the criteria to call it a success. This test also indicates that Tatung InfoComm subscribers could likewise use their equipment, usernames and passwords to gain access to non-Tatung InfoComm WiMAX networks.
“The entire communications industry stands on the precipice of immense change,” said Lynn Liu, president and CEO of Aicent. “People are traveling with great ease and more often than not bringing with them devices that need to connect to networks. There are important technical challenges to overcome to enable people to have ‘anywhere, anytime access’ to these important, often critical data networking connections. Aicent is fortunate to work with partners like Tatung InfoComm, bringing the innovations that will ultimately result in a worldwide ubiquitous WiMAX network.”
WiMAX has emerged as a key technology to support true 4G connectivity for both fixed wireless and mobile. Available spectrum in countries has been allocated to WiMAX and literally hundreds of new wireless operators are delivering services alongside traditional wireless operators. Today there are a growing number of devices supporting multiple radios for multimode WiMAX, WiMAX+Wi-Fi, WiMAX+EVDO and WiMAX+HSPA in the market. Aicent is already working with many CDMA, GSM, Wi-Fi and WiMAX operators to bring global and inter-standard roaming into commercial reality.