Since N-WEST News #1 on April 9, a number of LMDS companies (license holders as well as system, subsystem,and component suppliers, both large and small) have expressed their interest in and support of N-WEST. A few have given explicit permission to be quoted. Comments from the those willing to go on record are now available on the Web (http://nwest.nist.gov/supporters.html).
N-WEST, by its nature, requires the support of individual companies in order to succeed. At N-WEST's current stage, the biggest impact a company can make in the development and acceptance of the organization is to publicly state its interest and its reasons for this interest. Standards organizations accelerate their development as the companies comprising an industry come on board, even if only tentatively.
Many companies responding to our early announcements have asked the question "How can we become involved?" We are now announcing an answer to that question:
N-WEST is looking to develop a broad base of Supporting Companies that are willing to publicly state their interest but are otherwise under no obligation. In order to become a Supporting Company, a company need only submit a simple form from the Web site (http://nwest.nist.gov//signupinfo.html). That form asks you six general yes/no questions that outline your interest in having a voice in N-WEST. To become a Supporting Company, two of the answers must be in the affirmative: (1) you must request to become a Supporting Company, and (2) you must give N-WEST permission to report your responses publicly. If you wish to make additional comments, you are encouraged to do so. You may wish to make a statement of support or note your company's particular interests or goals in the testbed. Supporting Companies will be listed on the N-WEST Web site along with their public comments.
N-WEST has defined the following roles for its Supporting Companies:
We've set up an easy way to tell a colleague about NWEST. Just click "Tell a Colleague" (or see http://nwest.nist.gov/colleague.html) and you'll be able to easily set up an email message to let your friends know about N-WEST.
We've also added forms to subscribe (or unsubscribe) to this bulletin (http://nwest.nist.gov/subscribe.html), enroll as a Supporting Company (http://nwest.nist.gov//signupinfo.html), and register your comments.
The 1998 IEEE Radio and Wireless Conference (RAWCON'98) has selected panelists for its Panel Discussion Session (August 11, 1998 in Colorado Springs, CO) entitled "LMDS: Jumpstarting an Industry":
*Marc Leclair, Vice President/Engineering, Baker Creek Communications, L.P.
*Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, Lucent Technologies, Inc., Wireless Broadband Network Division, Milpitas, CA
*Leland Langston, Raytheon TI Systems, Dallas, TX
*Dr. Narisa Chu, President, C&W Systems, Ltd., Devon, PA; Chief Technical Consultant, Cortelyou Communications Corp.
*Dr. Roger Marks, Director, NWEST, NIST, Boulder, CO
The N-WEST Kickoff meeting will be held on August 9, 1998 in conjunction with RAWCON.
N-WEST is far from fully defined. You have the opportunity to help shape it to meet your needs.
At this time, I invite you to consider whether N-WEST may possibly be of benefit to your company and, if so, to enroll as a Supporting Company by completing the form (http://nwest.nist.gov//signupinfo.html). To those of you who have privately expressed your support, I urge you to take a stand and help and help further your own goals for the industry.
While I encourage you to make sure that you represent your company's viewpoint before submitting on-the-record comments, I also encourage you to pursue this matter with due haste so that we may speedily get the program moving.
If you have any comments on N-WEST or this procedure that you do not wish to be posted to the web, please relate them to me directly. In particular, I would like to hear from companies that choose not to participate so that we may better understand their reasons for declining.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Roger