Two industry groups involved in WLAN standards evolution, the OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) Forum and ATIS (Alliance for Telecommunications Standards), announced today that they have signed a Cooperation Agreement. This agreement is designed to formalize the collaboration facilitating industry understanding of OFDM technology and issues facing OFDM standardization.
OFDM is a modulation scheme used in several standards including IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.16, and ETSI BRAN HIPERLAN/2 and HIPERMAN standards. Modulation relates to how data is moved along a carrier signal.
The OFDM Forum states that its goal is to achieve a single, global OFDM standard for use around the world.
ATIS is a standards organization representing companies in the telecommunications sector. Its 19 committees, forums, and groups are comprised of over 1500 experts from over 400 telecommunications companies around the world. Their focus is interconnection standards, number portability, data transmission, wireless, and other telephony issues. The FCC consults with ATIS regarding operations issues. Member organizations include telecomm service providers, manufacturers, software developers, resellers, enhanced service providers, and providers of operations support.
The OFDM Forum describes itself as a market development association comprised of hardware manufacturers, software firms, telecomm companies and others interested in OFDM. Its goal since its beginning in Dec, 1999, has been to promote a single, compatible global OFDM standard for cost-effective high-speed wireless LANs. Founding companies include: Ericsson, Nokia, Philips Semiconductors, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Sony, Wi-LAN and the Testbed Center for the Interoperability at the University of California at Santa Barbara. It includes 60 members to date.
Matthew Peretz is Managing Editor of 802.11-Planet.com