WiMedia Alliance Partners With Wireless Alliance for Testing Experiment and Research (WALTER) to Advance European UWB Test Specifications

Market Wire, September, 2008

The WiMedia Alliance today announced that it is partnering with the Wireless Alliance for Testing Experiment and Research (WALTER) to focus on furthering European development of technology required for measurement, calibration and testing of UWB radio products. This collaboration, called the WALTER project, includes several partners worldwide and aims to create a pan-European interconnected testbed, and to boost the European innovation potential to develop new applications and services based on extremely high capacity networks.

Through this collaboration, researchers with the WALTER project will have direct access to members of the WiMedia Alliance who are involved in the development of the specifications providing them with instantaneous access to test specifications. WiMedia will have access to WALTER regulatory tests and to three WALTER independent testing labs located in Europe and China, helping drive international acceptance and adoption of WiMedia standards.

"This relationship is another example of our commitment to rapid deployment of WiMedia UWB standards on an international basis and to have the support in place that is needed for adoption," said Roberto Aiello, chairman, WiMedia Certification Review Board. "Our participation with the Walter project goes hand-in-hand with our partnerships with other global efforts including our existing partnerships with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and Ecma International, an international standards organization."

About the WiMedia Alliance

The WiMedia Alliance is a not-for-profit open industry association that promotes and enables the rapid adoption, regulation, standardization and multi-vendor interoperability of ultra-wideband (UWB) worldwide. The basis for the industry's first UWB standards (published by Ecma International), WiMedia UWB is optimized for wireless personal-area networks delivering high-speed (480Mbps and beyond), low-power multimedia capabilities for the PC, CE, mobile and automotive market segments. Emphasizing peaceful coexistence with other wireless services, the WiMedia UWB Common Radio Platform is designed to operate with application stacks developed by the Certified Wireless USB Promoter Group, the Bluetooth-SIG and proprietary implementations. Further information on the WiMedia Alliance and its certification program is available at www.wimedia.org

About WALTER

WALTER is a project co-financed by the European Commission under the 7th framework program for RTD. Started in January 2008 it will last 2 years. Gathering 8 organisations from Europe and China, the project WALTER addresses the need for broadband testbeds by overcoming the technical issues of measuring low level, high datarate radio signals. The resulting worldwide interconnected testbeds will address the short term needs of industry and regulators but also the longer-term needs of research communities.

Further information on the WALTER project is available at www.walter-uwb.eu

Contact: Patrick Corcoran WiMedia Alliance PR (360) 314-4732 Email Contact