Japanese WiMAX Operator YOZAN Inc. Joins the WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance as Board Member

YOZAN Inc. (YOZAN) has become the latest WiMAX operator to join the WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance (WiSOA), and company chairman Sunao Takatori has been elected to serve as a WiSOA board member. The key objective of WiSOA, a global organisation composed exclusively of owners of WiMAX spectrum, is to accelerate the acceptance and deployment of interoperable WiMAX networks through a coordinated global effort. WiSOA welcomes YOZAN as a valuable member who is expected to contribute to and to fortify alliance initiatives. One of the flagship contributions include a Quad-band 16e wave 2 USB device currently being co-developed with Airspan that will enable users to access WiMAX networks virtually anywhere in the world.

YOZAN is the first to adopt and provide WiMAX services in Japan and is focused on providing WiMAX-based services throughout areas of Tokyo, prior to expanding services to Osaka, Nagoya, and Kyoto. The company operates WiMAX services over 4.9GHz, which is a semi-licensed, registered spectrum in Japan. YOZAN uses Airspan equipment to offer 802.16d fixed and nomadic services featuring the MicroMAX-SDR base station, which requires a “software only” upgrade to support 16e mobile WiMAX. With the upgrade, the base stations will simultaneously support both 256 OFDM Fixed CPE and SOFDMA Mobile WiMAX laptop cards, handsets and USB devices.

On the customer premise equipment (CPE) front, YOZAN is co-developing with Airspan to produce a 16eUSB device that will become the first mobile WiMAX USB device. This device, which is designed to be fully compatible with the IEEE’s 802.16e-2005 standard and the WiMAX Forum Mobile WIMAX System Profile in Wave2, is designed to support MIMO, beam-forming smart antennas, idle and sleep modes and handover. As a quad-band device that will operate in all key WiMAX frequency bands, including 2.3-2.4 GHz, 2.5-2.7 GHz, 3.3-3.7 GHz, and the 4.9-.5.4 GHz bands, it will allow users to have access to WiMAX networks almost wherever they are in the world. The device has participated in the Plugfests testing for interoperability of 16e products in the 1st and 2nd mobile WiMAX Plugfests.

Sunao Takatori, chairman of YOZAN, comments that “the market is maturing and YOZAN is poised to cater to a growing demand for new wireless broadband experiences, like nomadic and mobile VoIP and other location-based services, of which only WiMAX and WiFi are capable of delivering. We are especially confident and excited about this burgeoning opportunity in WiMAX.”

“Japan represents an interesting market for WiMAX, and YOZAN's presence will only serve to strengthen our joint objective of expanding WiMAX – in Japan and beyond,” said Steve Cosser, chairman of WiSOA. “We are extremely pleased that YOZAN chairman Sunao Takatori has been appointed a WiSOA board member.”