Several industry heavyweights are getting behind an effort to roll out the next generation of WiMAX technology, which boasts peak rates of more than 300 Mbps.

Motorola, Samsung, Intel and ZTE are among the companies that have lent their support to the effort. The companies hope to speed adoption of the new standard through the WiMAX 2 Collaboration Initiative (WCI), which will focus on interoperability with first-generation WiMAX technology.

“We are confident that the WCI will rapidly expand the Mobile WiMAX market to provide mobile Internet to people in all corners of the globe,” said Samsung’s telecommunication’s head Woonsub Kim in a statement. “We’re strongly committed to accelerating the development and commercialization of WiMAX 2 solutions based on the 802.16m standard.”

The news of a newer, faster WiMAX standard could help draw operators to the 4G technology, which has not been as popular with legacy operators as LTE despite coming to market sooner. WiMAX 2, which is based on the IEEE 802.16m standard, is said to offer higher speeds, lower latency and increased VoIP capacity than the previous standard.

WiMAX 2 products are not expected to be commercially available until late 2011.