The road to WiMAX often seems painfully slow, you can’t blame us for getting excited at the first sign of some sort of progress. The latest news is that WiMAX has been officially certified as a 3G standard by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union. What does this mean? Well, it means that WiMAX is now the sixth official form of 3G technology. More importantly, however, it means that WiMAX can now legally use airwaves that have been designated for 3G use, which should bring us a lot closer to actual deployment. Of course, the folks who already have 3G networks up and running aren’t going to be too happy about this announcement, as it means increased competition for that oh-so-valuable 3G-approved bandwidth. Regardless, the WiMax Forum is touting this as a big win for consumers and we would tend to agree–competition is rarely a bad thing in the tech industry.

For more on the stamp of approval:
– see this PC World article