WiBro or Wireless Broadband was first developed in Korea and has been adopted by the Korean government as its standard for mobile connectivity. In 2005, when WiMax 802.16e standards was officially ratified by IEEE, the Korean WiBro solutions started to implement the baseline standards of WiMax technology. There is some confusion as to the relationship between WiMax and WiBro. Essentially however, WiBro is WiMax deployed in Korea. In other words, WiMax WiBro solutions and standards only mean similar technologies and capabilities.
After the ratification of WiMax standards, Korean communication authorities quickly adjusted their WiBro system in order to conform to the IEEE requirements. In effect, the Korean mobile broadband solution can interoperate with the international wireless connectivity standards thus making technology adoption easier. In fact, Korea today has one of the most advanced deployments of WiMax compared to other countries. The WiMax Forum also located a certification center for compliance in Korea because of its sophisticated technologies in wireless broadband.
WiBro can also be implemented in other countries. The WiBro community is a participating party to the implementation and development of IEEE 802.16e standards. Their wireless broadband implements these standards so there wouldn’t be a problem in adoption and migration. The functionality of WiBro is specifically defined by WiMax and conforms to the international system profile for mobile WiMax. It operates on a frequency band of 2.3 GHz which is also used by mobile WiMax. It has a unique bandwidth spread of 9 MHz with a maximum effective bandwidth of 8.7 MHz.