6
IEEE 802.20 Mobile-Fi
6.1 Introduction
The IEEE 802.20 working group was formed on December 11, 2002 to draft a set of specifications in support of Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA), nick named Mobile-Fi. For the first few years the working group (WG) did not make any sufficient progress. In 2005 the WG activities were revived to counter the threat from WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) and for the sake of its own existence. The WG was eventually reborn with Qualcomm’s “Proposed Draft Air Interface Specification” submitted in response to “MBWA Call for Proposals.” This proposal submitted in January 2006 was in fact Qualcomm’s response to the IEEE 802.16e (Mobile WiMAX) standard.
From mid 2005 the WG was also going through a turmoil that finally died down in late 2006. This chaos was due lack of transparency, dominance, and other irregularities in the WG. The WG activities became highly contentious beyond what is normally observed in IEEE-SA (IEEE – Standard Association). Due to these reasons on June 8, 2006 the IEEE-SA Standards Board temporarily suspended all activities of the 802.20 WG. On September 15, 2006, the board adopted a plan to enable the WG to move forward with its work, and provide the best opportunity for completion and approval of the standard. The WG activities were resumed and proposals were submitted starting in September 2006. On July 17, 2007, the IEEE 802 Executive Committee along with its 802.20 Oversight Committee approved a change to voting in the 802.20 working ...
