Motorola highlights WiMAX viability for the Middle East and North Africa at WiMAX MEGNA

Noel Kirkaldy, Director of wireless broadband for Motorola Home & Networks Mobility in Middle East and Africa (MEA), will deliver a keynote at the conference on Monday, March 10 at 12:45pm entitled 'What's WiMAX Got to do with me?' His keynote will highlight the increased potential for WiMAX in the region and requirements for continued growth of the WiMAX eco-system.

Motorola witnessed tremendous progress in the deployment of WiMAX 802.16e technology worldwide in 2007 and Motorola's wi4 WiMAX portfolio was recognized for several awards for the infrastructure solutions and the devices. Motorola is involved in 47 trials and has 17 contracts for commercial WiMAX systems.

Several of these are with customers in the region, including Motorola's WiMAX contracts with Wateen Telecom in Pakistan (part of the Abu Dhabi Group), with Mobilink (an Orascom Telecom Company) also in Pakistan, with Mena Telecom in Bahrain and with Warid Telecom in Uganda.

Motorola is continuing to support Wateen Telecom to keep up with rising user demand for data access in Pakistan with the supply of an initial order of 198,000 end-user WiMAX customer premises equipment (CPE) devices for both indoor and outdoor use, announced in January 2008.

Motorola has also affirmed its commitment to enable an industry-wide ecosystem of WiMAX-enabled mobile devices by announcing last month that it will license its mobile WiMAX chipset based radio reference design, Motorola WTM1000 (WiMAX Terminal Modem), to third parties. Motorola's WiMAX Devices Ecosystem Initiative is a significant milestone in accelerating the proliferation of WiMAX into a wider consumer base.

WiMAX MEGNA takes place at the Marriott Courtyard hotel, Jebel Ali on 10th and 11th of March 2008.