The WiMAX community gathered in Tokyo this week, keen to demonstrate that it still has a significant headstart over LTE in performance terms. The WiMAX2 standard, based on IEEE 802.16m, should be finalized this November and Samsung has already disclosed the results of the first public trial of the technology, which achieved speeds of 330Mbps.

The trial network was created with Japanese WiMAX operator UQ Communications, a joint venture between cellco KDDI, Intel and others. UQ showed off full high definition 3D video running over Samsung’s WiMAX2 equipment, which the vendor said is already commercially robust, though it may have to be tweaked slightly to ensure full compatibility with the finalized standard. Samsung aims to launch 16m systems in late 2011 and other suppliers such as Huawei have made similar pledges.