Intel and KACST launch first wireless mobile services R&D lab in the Arab World, developed by Egyptian engineers

The new center will be hosted at KACST and it will serve the Middle East Turkey and Africa region.

This lab will act as a hub to address the challenges of networking deployment, eliminate deployment hurdles for WiMAX-based wireless broadband, and offer professional services for wireless broadband service providers, telecom equipment manufacturers and system integrators.

The lab will also conduct WiMAX client and infrastructure equipment validation interoperability testing, custom studies for performance optimization, pre-certification and experimentation with new WiMAX services and applications.

"Research and development are the basis for future success and WiMAX is especially important in developing markets where wire line technology is limited due to the lack of infrastructure"

said Barrett.

"WiMAX requires virtually no infrastructure and can cover large rural areas with immediate benefits for the whole population. We are confident that this lab will provide an excellent platform for Arab scientists and scholars to be innovative in the field of telecommunications and in particular in the WiMAX and networking arena."

Khaled Elamrawi, Country Manager Egypt Levant and North Africa commented:

"Innovation and broadband availability via widespread implementation of WiMAX, are critical to enabling continued growth in Egypt and the Arab economies. This lab has been developed with Egyptian engineers at Intel and will serve as a hub for the telco community at large, across the Arab world, including Egypt. This type of mobile connectivity is really the next step in driving the region forward."

In addition to accelerating the deployment of WiMAX wireless broadband services, KACST will make use of best known methods from other regions to help stimulate new innovative ideas for deployment in the region. The lab will put emphasis toward WiMAX mobility and broadband coverage problems in the region as well as other challenges such as validation of end-to-end network deployment, interoperability between client and base station and feature validation per WiMAX Forum system and network profiles.