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WiMAX Companies Like Airspan, On Their Marks, Ready To Go; Looking to Leverage WiMAX Certification for Overall Industry Growth

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 October 2005, 12:01 CDT

Leading WiMAX equipment and semiconductor vendors with products poised to receive an official WiMAX certification stamp from the WiMAX Forum are preparing for a fast rollout of their newly certified products.

In August, Airspan Networks (Nasdaq:AIRN), with Aperto Networks, Proxim, Sequans and Wavesat, delivered their respective WiMAX solutions to Cetecom Labs, in Malaga, Spain, for conformance and interoperability testing. This critical exercise ensures the stability of the test suite and readiness of the various solutions for formal conformance and radio testing. With this essential step completed, formal conformance and interoperability testing will begin later this month.

The products that pass both protocol and radio conformance, then interoperability testing, will be tagged "WiMAX Forum Certified(TM)" for IEEE 802.16-2004. More importantly, certification will enable these companies to begin "risk-free" deployment of their newly certified products.

"The imminent WiMAX certification for the first wave of WiMAX products is an important achievement for the WiMAX industry," said Adlane Fellah, Senior Analyst with Maravedis, adding: "Those WiMAX vendors who have plenty of WiMAX Forum Certified(TM) products ready for shipment will be rewarded with a first-to-market advantage."

The new, standards-based WiMAX products, built predominantly with off-the-shelf components, are expected to lower the cost of vendor equipment to service providers, ultimately serving as a catalyst to ignite the global market demand for WiMAX solutions.

"The certification and rollout of the first WiMAX Forum Certified(TM) products will capture the attention of existing and soon-to-be wireless broadband operators and service providers," said Lindsay Schroth, Yankee Group senior analyst. "This milestone is likely to help accelerate the buying decisions of a number of fence-sitters."

Airspan's AS.MAX product family has been designed for indoor, self-installable deployment of customer premises equipment, an essential requirement of operators for the economic rollout of broadband wireless. The EasyST is the first product of its type to offer fully indoor plug-and-play WiMAX services. The product family will be commercially available in the third quarter 2005. The products will give businesses and consumers uninterrupted access to a rich variety of high bandwidth applications such as networked gaming, streamed digital music, TV, videoconferencing, and other real-time services at speeds faster than today's 3G networks. Fixed WiMAX is expected to deliver end-user data rates greater than 1 Mbps - 3 to 5 times faster than today's commercial 3G networks.

About Airspan Networks Inc.

Airspan Networks provides fixed and wireless voice and data systems and solutions, including Voice Over IP (VoIP). Its wireless products serve operators around the world in both licensed and unlicensed frequency bands between 700 MHz and 6 GHz, including both PCS and 3.5 GHz international bands. Airspan has a strong wireless product roadmap that includes offerings compliant with the new WiMAX 802.16-2004 standard, and software upgradeability to 802.16e from the time the WiMAX products are introduced. Airspan is on the Board and a founder member of the WiMAX Forum. The Company has deployments with more than 300 operators in more than 95 countries. Airspan's wireless systems are based on radio technology that delivers excellent area coverage, high security and resistance to fading. These systems can be deployed rapidly and cost effectively, providing an attractive alternative to traditional wired communications networks. Airspan's new iTone VoIP system is a carrier class, turnkey solution that provides carriers with Class 4, Class 5 and IP-Centrex solutions and has a Softswitch and Gateways supporting SIP/H323 and SIP. i-Tone's design provides customers; carriers, next-generation telcos, cellular providers and ITSP with a wide range of solutions with the best price/performance system for IP telephony. Airspan also offers radio planning, network installation, integration, training and support services to facilitate the deployment and operation of its systems. Airspan is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida with its main operations center in Uxbridge, United Kingdom.

More information on Airspan can be found at http://www.airspan.com

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, including statements regarding our strategy, future operations, financial position, future revenues, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management, may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. The words "targets", "anticipates,""believes,""estimates,""expects,""intends,""may,""plans,""projects,""will,""would" and similar expressions or negative variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from the plans, intentions and expectations disclosed in the forward-looking statements we make. Investors and others are therefore cautioned that a variety of factors, including certain risks, may affect our business and cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. These risk factors include, without limitation, (i) a slowdown of expenditures by communication service providers; (ii) increased competition from alternative communication systems; (iii) the failure of our existing or prospective customers to purchase products as projected; (iv) our inability to successfully implement cost reduction or containment programs; (v) a loss of any of our key customers; (vi) our ability to integrate iTone into our operations and to sell iTone products through our existing sales force; (vii) our ability to retain Axtel, Mexico, as our largest customer; and (viii) our ability to continue to sell the Proximity products on terms and conditions comparable to those currently utilized. The Company is also subject to the risks and uncertainties described in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K, as amended by Amendment No.1 on Form 10-K/A, for the year ended 31 December, 2004. You should read those factors as being applicable to all related forward-looking statements wherever they appear in this press release. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Source: Business Wire

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