At MWC 2014 (Mobile World Congress), Barcelona, WiMAX Forum and Global TD-LTE Initiative announced their partnership.
The partnership is aimed to guarantee WiMAX Advanced is compatible with TD-LTE, which ensures WiMAX operators are able to share economy of scale of TD-LTE and provide service with either Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) or International Mobile Telecom (IMT)-Advanced network implementations.
WiMAX Forum proposes a co-labeling process of WiMAX Advanced and TD-LTE ecosystem products, and will sponsor a WiMAX Advanced / TD-LTE platform, to be implemented by Taiwan CMB (Consortium of Mobile Broadband) to facilitate ecosystem interoperability in August 2014.
With some WiMAX operators upgrading to TD-LTE or endorsing WiMAX Advanced, the Global industry responses to this harmonization is very timely, said Mohammad Shakouri, chairman of the WiMAX Forum and Craig Ehrlich, chairman at GTI.