Navini, which has been associated with the developing 802.20 standard, said it has joined the WiMax Forum: The 802.16 standard, backed by the WiMax Forum, and the 802.20 group are ultimately after the same idea. The 802.20 standard, spearheaded by Flarion and ArrayComm, is meant to deliver mobile high speed data. The 802.16 standard was originally designed for fixed wireless broadband implementations but is now working on adding mobility to the standard. Navini says it decided to join the WiMax group because 802.16 has so much momentum and will ultimately deliver mobility.
While 802.16 has Intel backing it, the 802.20 crew gets a boost because Nextel is using Flarion's gear in North Carolina where it just opened its network to paying customers. The 802.20 supporters defend their efforts by saying that their standard was architected from the ground up for mobility so it's more efficient than the 802.16 mobile version which had to accommodate for the previous fixed version of the standard. Still, the WiMax Forum has quite a bit of momentum behind it and a long list of supporters. History shows that kind of momentum can be powerful.