N-WEST News #29
National Wireless Electronic Systems Testbed (N-WEST)

2 February 2001

Topics:

IEEE 802.16 ADVANCES AND UNIFIES IN SESSION #11

Session #11 of the IEEE Working Group 802.16 on Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) Standards took place in Ottawa, Canada on 22-26 January 2001. The session was marked by an agreement to create a unified Working Group air interface document, with a common, flexible MAC platform supporting multiple spectrum-dependent physical layers. The first stage (the 10-66 GHz physical layer and MAC to support it) was approved for a Working Group Letter Ballot. In the development of the 2-11 GHz physical layer, the focus was narrowed and consolidation is underway. The WirelessHUMANTM Task Group held its first formal meetings to address licensed-exempt operations and found general consensus. A Recommended Practice on Coexistence was readied for Sponsor Ballot (its final round of balloting).

For details, please see the Session #11 Report.

IEEE CONFERENCE ON STANDARDIZATION AND INNOVATION IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SIIT2001)

The 2001 IEEE Conference on Standardization and Innovation in Information Technology will be held at the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO, USA on October 3-5, 2001. This is a global forum for exploring the complex relationships between standardization and innovation. SIIT2001 is organized by the International Center for Standards Research (ICSR) at the University of Colorado; it is sponsored by IEEE and technically cosponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, with several other participating organizations. This conference follows a succcessful SIIT1999 in Aachen, Germany.

The SIIT2001 Call for Papers is on the web site. However, note that the deadlines have been extended. Paper submissions are due March 31. Acceptance notification will be by June 30, and final manuscripts are due on July 30.

IN THE NEWS

An article in the January 29, 2001 issue of EE Times, entitled Fixed wireless gets its day in the sun, quoted Roger Marks, mentioning N-WEST and IEEE 802.16. The article is on page 55.

Separately, EE Times provided a full report on Session #11 in the article IEEE group gains ground on wireless standards.

UPCOMING TALKS

Roger Marks is a featured speaker at the Broadband Wireless World Forum 2001 (at The Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, USA on February 19-21) in the General Session on "Emerging Global Standards and Industry Specifications."

Read about N-WEST at http://nwest.nist.gov

Dr. Roger Marks (marks@nist.gov)
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado, USA