Friday, November 20, 2009

4G -- Next Wireless Technology Standard

The next major wireless standard on the horizon is 4G with the promise of bringing 100 Mbps and connection speeds up to 50 times faster than 3G networks. Quality of Service (QoS) will be greatly improved in spite of new technical hurdles. In this article the author shows that one of the main benefits is location-based applications. I've heard of applications under development in which one can point a cell phone camera at a store front and through the use of location-based tracking and image processing, the system can tell you more about that store -- specials, operating hours, etc. The location-based market is probably one of the fastest growing markets in the wireless world today. 4G will enable more sophisticated rollouts.

Best regards,
Hall T.

4G -- Next Wireless Technology Standard

The next major wireless standard on the horizon is 4G with the promise of bringing 100 Mbps and connection speeds up to 50 times faster than 3G networks. Quality of Service (QoS) will be greatly improved in spite of new technical hurdles. In this article the author shows that one of the main benefits is location-based applications. I've heard of applications under development in which one can point a cell phone camera at a store front and through the use of location-based tracking and image processing, the system can tell you more about that store -- specials, operating hours, etc. The location-based market is probably one of the fastest growing markets in the wireless world today. 4G will enable more sophisticated rollouts.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Open Base Station project

The Open Base Station Project is an open-source Unix application that uses the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) to present a GSM air interface to a standard GSM handset. This project seeks to provide mobile wireless communication for about 1/10 the cost of a commercially available option. The tools are such that graduate students can build their own GSM networks as seen in this blog post. According to their project blog they've made substantial progress in field testing it at Burning Man.

Best regards,
Hall T.

Friday, November 06, 2009

802.22 Standard -- Working Group on Wireless Regional Area Networks ("WRANs")

The goal of the IEEE 802.22 Working Group is to develop a standard for a cognitive radio-based interface for use by license-exempt devices which must operate on a non-interfering basis with other devices in the frequency spectrum that is allocated to the TV Broadcast Service. The standards developed so far are available for download here. It is interesting to note that the FCC and the IEEE plan to managing the white space channels through a centralized clearinghouse approach. You can read more here about the structure.


Best regards,

Hall T.