Members of the WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance (WiSOA) have signed what is said to be the world’s first WiMAX roaming agreement, and formed a partnership with MACH Sarl, the clearing and settlement company and hot spot access provider Trustive BV. Wisoa says the agreement and partnership is the crucial first step in what will provide for seamless ‘GSM-like’ roaming amongst WiMAX networks, and roaming partnerships with global Wi-Fi and 3G networks – expediting the rollout of interoperable WiMAX services worldwide.

“Our goal in this initiative is to ensure that any wireless subscriber could gain broadband access, regardless of where they are,” comments WiSOA chairman Steve Cosser.

One of the first companies to sign the agreement was Unwired Group Limited in Australia. According to David Spence, chief executive officer of Unwired: “This is a landmark agreement that will enable WiMAX subscribers to remain connected anywhere in the world.”

MACH and Trustive will provide turn-key solutions for unified clearance, billing and interconnection, which together will allow WiMAX users to roam to other networks. These services will allow roaming amongst WiMAX networks, as well as interconnection with an aggregated global Wi-Fi network, and hundreds of GSM and 3G networks, creating a global wireless IP clearing and roaming platform.

Which sounds a tad like what the WiBro & Mobile WiMAX Community (WMC) also has in mind. This telco body held a general assembly organised by KT in South Korea last October at which the organisation’s operational rules were confirmed, and major officials elected.

Claiming to be established as the first body of its kind in the world, the WMC aims to structure a WiBro ‘global roaming belt’ and pursue mutual benefits for its participants by exchanging business models, securing compatibility between services, and sharing information, thereby strengthening the global competitiveness of WiBro.

The WMC is now discussing specific agenda items such as securing the compatibility of services and equipment for WiBro global roaming services, establishing the roaming work processes, and calculating service fees - as overseas telecom operators will substantiate their pursuit of the WiBro business - as well as exploring business models.

Moreover, the WMC says it is set to share the experience of KT – the first company to commercialise WiBro - and other companies to promote business and increase  cooperation between its members. To that end, the WMC will run working groups for the operation of global roaming services and the development of business models, and will hold a regular, twice yearly general assembly.

KT also plans to lead the way in preparing the global roaming services with overseas telecom operators through the WMC and push for overseas advancement of the business models developed and applied by it.

Are the WiSOA and the WMC on a collision course? Could be. And while the WiSOA has a head start and some reasonably heavyweight members, the WMC participants are definitely Tier 1 – as well as KT its membership (as of October at any rate) numbers 19 Asian telecom operators, including NTT Broadband (Japan), e-Access (Japan), PCCW (Hong Kong), TM (Malaysia), and SingTel (Singapore), 7 European operators including TI (Italy), BT (the UK), FT (France), and NTC (Russia), 5 operators from the Americas, including Sprint Nextel, Covad Communications (both the USA) and Omnivision (Venezuela), and 4 other telecom operators including Unwired (Australia) and Etisalat (UAE).
John Williamson