Vividwireless to begin testing Perth WiMAX in two weeks

Vividwireless has revealed it will have an operational WiMAX network in Perth that is ready for testing in the next fortnight.

The network builder's chief Martin Mercer told iTnews the firm would be commissioning "a few of our cell sites very soon" with a view to begin testing shortly.

"We've been going [with the build] for a little over three months. We'll have an operational network in the next week or two," Mercer said.

He said the test network represented "a subset of the total number of sites" to be covered by the WiMAX network.

Mercer also revealed that Vividwireless had inked a deal with Kordia to act as the network operations centre (NOC) for the Perth network.

Mercer said Vividwireless had also fitted out its space in the Perth iX data centre.

The $50 million network was expected to offer peak speeds "in excess of 20 Mbps" and average speeds of at least 4 Mbps. Services are due to start in March 2010.