Even though WiMAX coverage is still unavailable in most places and the technology's main backer in the U.S. is already mulling the possibility of adopting LTE in the near future, the WiMAX Forum industry group is moving full steam ahead with the next iteration of its 4G standard. Based on the 802.16m specification, WiMAX 2 will be capable of delivering around 100Mbps downstream on high mobility devices like cell phones and approximately 1Gbps for stationary devices like a 4G modem at home. Today Samsung is offering a small taste of the insane speeds to come in the future.
The company showed off a WiMAX 2 implementation at the CEATEC Japan 2010 electronics show this week in Tokyo and was able to achieve download speeds of roughly 330 Mbps and simultaneously stream16 full-HD videos. The trial system was built in partnership with UQ Communications and reportedly uses Samsung Mobile WiMAX base stations already deployed globally by major Mobile WiMAX operators. Companies can upgrade the aforementioned base stations to WiMAX 2 with new channel cards or system software, thus avoiding costly implementations. That said, the first commercially available WiMAX 2 products from Samsung won't be out until the end of 2011.