802.16 vs 802.20

If you're keeping up with WiMAX 802.16, this is an interesting story about the dynamics between it and 802.20:

Flarion was always an interesting beast. They seemed to think that
they neither infringed nor were infringed upon by W-OFDM or anything
related to Wi-MAX. They always thought that they had something
special because it was designed for mobility from the gitgo (to
quote RCM).

They started 802.20, in spite of being invited by 802.16 to
participate in 802.16e. As this happened in the session we were
hosting in Calgary, I was personally heavily involved (in fact it
was the only IEEE session that I personally attended). I worked
hard and so did Roger Marks to keep them in the fold as it were. But
they were adamant they went to the IEEE Standards Committee (not the
right name, I forget) and requested their own standard. What they
failed to understand is that by the rules of the IEEE had they
stayed within 802.16 they would have been protected. Because of the
voting eligibility requirements of an existing standard group, it
would have been almost impossible for outsiders to dominate that
group. When they started their own in the next meeting in Dallas,
every IEEE member attending that session becomes a voter
automatically. Qualcom, Lucent, Nortel, others swamped the meeting
voted the Flarion guys out and 802.20 was pretty much still born.
Qualcom led that effort. I had lunch with a Qualcom VP who was
chortling about how they killed 802.20. Then QCOM bought Flarion. Go
figure.

Probably nothing to help with your investment decisions but a good
story I hope.
Sisso