SANTA CLARA (WiMAX Day). Intel has been one of the most formidable crusaders for WiMAX, and now the company plans to soon launch marketing efforts commensurate with its multi-billion dollar WiMAX investments.

According to a recent report in <em>Multichannel News</em>, “Intel next year plans to launch an ‘Intel Inside’-style marketing campaign aimed at both consumer and business users.” With the network of Clearwire spreading throughout America, and Sprint’s mobile WiMAX network launch promised for year-end 2007, Intel has considerable work to do to support these two major partners.

“We’re going to create pull-through for WiMAX,” said Ron Peck, director of Intel’s WiMAX unit, in the report. “With a relatively new technology like this, you want to aggressively go after consumers and small businesses.”

While Intel has given no indication of the size of its WiMAX marketing budget, it is expected to be comparable with its previous marketing efforts for Centrino and WiFi.

Intel is planning to launch its WiMAX silicon first in laptop PCs. Next year the company will have motherboard chips, and by 2009 Intel should release its pure WiMAX silicon providing dual-band WiFi connectivity. The report noted that Intel presently has no deals signed with PC manufacturers, although it is working with several manufacturers on design and testing. Other sources indicate that notebook innovator Apple Computer has already signed on for WiMAX with Intel.