2008 the year of Wimax?

In his keynote on Wednesday, David Perlmutter, senior vice president of Intel’s Mobility Group, described mobile users with “insatiable appetites,” hungry for ever more mobility and connectivity.The company plans to sate this hunger with something called Montevina in mid-2008. Montevina, which will become the company’s next-generation Centrino mobile platform, is based on Intel’s 45-nanometer fabrication technology. It will support things like DDR3 memory, Blu-ray and HD-DVD playback, as well as an integrated Wi-Fi/WiMax module the company calls Echo Peak.What that means in plain English is that Montevina notebooks will be faster and low-power, will include support for the latest optical storage standards, and will presumably be ready to connect with the latest wireless networks out of the box. As testament to the clout Intel wields, a number of laptop manufactures like Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba and Panasonic have already committed to using Montevina.

Key to Intel’s wireless strategy is the standard known as Mobile WiMax (IEEE 802.16e). Yes, that’s the same WiMax you’ve been hearing about — but not seeing — for close to five years now. But according to Intel, as well as Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, WiMax really will be ready for its public debut next year.With Sprint Nextel and Clearwire (which counts Intel among its major investors) teaming up for a $5 billion WiMax build-out by 2010, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said he expects “150 million [people] will be covered [by WiMax] in 2008, 750 million in 2010 and 1.3 billion in 2012.”

“We are on the cusp of a new global network, seamlessly integrated around the globe, to go into these ultramobile devices,” Otellini said.