Novatel Wireless today announced that it has successfully completed over the air testing of its new MiFi prototype based on 4G-WiMAX. Novatel’s WiMAX implementation immediately achieved throughput of 18Mbps in over-the-air testing and can support theoretical peak throughput speeds exceeding 30Mbps downlink and 10Mbps uplink in a 10 MHz channel. Nice!
“Novatel Wireless is pleased to support the growing 4G ecosystem and the evolution of next-generation communications with this milestone WiMAX call,” said Rob Hadley, CMO, Novatel Wireless. “The combination of our intelligent software platform on MiFi with 4G speeds from Beceem’s high-performance 4G-WiMAX chips will open up new opportunities for the growing number of initiatives involving 4G mobile broadband applications and services.”
That’s pretty good news – a well-known consumer mobile hotspot that is going to evolve to support 4G networks – the only question I have here is how it’s going to compare with CD HSPA+, which apparently can burst up to 40Mbps… I guess Novatel probably have a plan in place for both 4G technologies, and the 3G evolutionary path too 🙂