Roger Dorf's 2006 WiMAX Year in Review

Wow! What an exciting time. As we move through the final quarter of 2006 and finalize our plans for 2007, I’m very excited about the future of wireless broadband, and the future of Navini Networks. 2006 has been an incredible year. By the time this financial year ends Navini will have shipped over 1,500 beamforming base stations and one quarter of a million modems to customers all over the world. Not for trials. This equipment is being deployed in commercial networks which are delivering personal broadband to our customer’s subscribers. Our customers can boast some of the largest personal broadband networks in the world. All ahead of the 802.16e mobile WiMAX standard!

I must say “Thank You” to our customers for their early leadership in delivering personal broadband. Together we are well positioned to reap the benefits of mobile WiMAX as we move into 2007 and beyond. Our 2006 shipments will exceed the combined total of shipments in the preceding 3 years and will be more than double our 2005 shipments. And with the deployment of standards based wireless broadband solutions based on mobile WiMAX, we expect 2007 to be an even bigger year, as the wireless broadband market matures.

Navini is at the forefront of the wave 1 and wave 2 mobile WiMAX certification process, set to begin in 2007, and has already successfully participated in plugfests sponsored by the WiMAX Forum during the past year. We anticipate that WiMAX certification and large-scale interoperability will be primary drivers in bringing wireless broadband costs down and enabling new services such as roaming and VoIP.

Beyond interoperability, Navini has taken a lead in the future of WiMAX with the development of Smart WiMAX, which combines the power of beam forming with the capacity and coverage of MIMO. In fact we believe that MIMO will ultimately require beamforming to be practical in the real world outside the laboratory. Smart WiMAX brings the benefits of 5 years of practical experience in delivering personal broadband services to bear on WiMAX.

Navini is in the right place at the right time, with the right technology. We are already on our 3rd generation of wireless broadband hardware with the P3 base station and LMX and PMX modems. These systems are Smart WiMAX -capable, through a simple software upgrade.

I am excited about the New Year, and hope you are too!

12/6/2006 2:28:00 PM