Archive for Wireless

| April 2, 2013
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What is 4G Mobile Wireless

4G Mobile WirelessWireless operators continue to roll out mobile networks built with acronym-heavy standards such as 4G, Long Term Evolution (LTE), IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) or HSPA+. at GigaOM says it’s hardly a surprise that every press release is touting 4G, which presumably stands for the fourth generation wireless network. Only, according to InfoWorld, the truth is, neither WiMax nor LTE qualify as 4G technologies, according to the International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R). For a service to be called 4G by the ITU-R carriers will have to use one of two future mobile wireless technologies.

International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R)GigaOM reports that in October 2009, the ITU fielded 6 candidates that could meet the true definition of 4G mobile wireless. The main criteria required speed boosts, but more importantly, new technologies that make more efficient use of spectrum, as well as an ability to work with other radio access systems and fixed wireline networks. The standard also requires that equipment makers offer features that will help guarantee quality of service on wireless networks. Of the 6 candidates, the ITU declared the upcoming called LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced – also known as IEEE 802.16m the only true 4G mobile wireless technologies.

True 4G wireless calls for peak speeds of 100 Mbps for mobile applications and 1 Gigabit per second for fixed networks. To do such speeds, operators will need five to ten times as much spectrum as most are using now to deploy LTE, as well as complex antenna configurations. The new 8×8 MIMO will need some new antennas at the tower and inside the mobile devices. Some operators won’t ever get to that point. Others might, but it’s going to take four or five years before people start rolling out anything like the ITU’s version of 4G mobile wireless according to the GigaOm article.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersThe faux 4G we are getting now, comes in three flavors thanks to a bold marketing effort by T-Mobile writes Ms. Higginbotham. T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network is most assuredly 3G (or maybe 3.5G for some) but as its CTO, Neville Ray, argued with GigaOM founder Om Malik, its real-world mobile wireless speeds are better than those offered by WiMAX and are comparable to the real-world expectations of Verizon’s LTE network. The key to T-Mo’s experience lies in its spectrum resources. As a general rule, the more spectrum an operator has, the more lanes in its highway it can cram bits into. The blog says T-Mobile can use that spectrum to increase capacity or increase speeds. With plans to move from 21 Mbps to 42 Mbps speeds using HSPA+, T-Mo is going for speed to keep up with the wireless mobile Jones.

Laptop reports that other mobile wireless operators do not qualify as 4G either. “… Sprint and Clearwire’s Mobile WiMax (3 to 6 Mbps), T-Mobile’s HSPA+ (5 to 8 Mbps), and even Verizon Wireless’ LTE network (5 to 12 Mbps) don’t even come close to deserving the 4G moniker.”

After all, marketers pushing LTE first starting waving the 4G mobile wireless flag several years ago, despite the ITU hadn’t yet decided if LTE was 4G. The first releases wasn’t. We’ll have to wait for LTE-Advanced in about four or five years for true 4G. By then, it’s possible we’ll be dealing with 5G mobile wireless networks or something even better the marketers dream up. In the meantime, consumers will buy their faux 4G mobile wireless phones for their faux 4G mobile wireless networks and never sweat the difference GigaOm speculates.

The faux 4G networks are incremental improvements over 3G. As Tolaga Research analyst Phil Marshall told InfoWorld, these wireless mobile networks were designed from day 1 for data, and are all Internet protocol (IP) from end to end. That’s a huge improvement over 3G and it’s a marked change. Despite the improved architecture, Wi-Fi Net News asks if the spectrum is available to meet the 2015 rollout for real 4G. “It looks like the maximum speeds being discussed require extremely wide channels, like 100 MHz. That’s not impossible, but no U.S. carrier has 100 MHz in a chunk that it materialize. The FCC white-spaces rulemaking frees up a bunch of 6 MHz pieces, and that’s the last major realignment after DTV 700 MHz spectrum that I’m aware of.The definition of 4G may now be set, but the ability to roll out 4G at anything like the minimum speeds promised seems highly problematic even in five years.”

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Category: Wireless | Tags: , , , , ,
| January 17, 2013
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WiGig, Wi-Fi Join Forces

WiGig, Wi-Fi Join ForcesWireless Week is reporting that the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) and the Wi-Fi Alliance have joined forces. According to the article, the Wi-Fi Alliance and WiGig Alliance have collaborated for over two years on the WiGig Alliance’s work to develop an interoperability certification for 60GHz products.

Wi-Fi AllanceWi-Fi Alliance President and CEO Edgar Figueroa said in a statement that the 60GHz technology has been an important highlight in the Wi-Fi Alliance’s certification roadmap for some time. “Combining the expertise of Wi-Fi Alliance and WiGig Alliance will deliver a terrific user experience with 60 GHz solutions, and will help ensure that a full range of interoperable WiGig solutions reach the market as quickly as possible,” Mr. Figueroa said in a statement.

WiGig operates in the unlicensed 60 MHz band and offers short-range multi-gigabit connections with speeds up to 7 Gbps. FierceBroadbandWireless reports that initial applications will include ultrabooks and peripherals. WiGig offers short-range multi-gigabit connections for applications ranging from high-definition WiGig Display Extensions (WDE), to peripheral connectivity and I/O cable replacement such as WiGig Serial Extension (WSE), WiGig Bus Extension (WBE) and WiGig SDIO Extension (WDS). Tablets will then include the technology, primarily for media streaming, and smartphones will drive more widespread WiGig adoption from 2015 on according to ABI Research.

WiGig standard

Its major limitation is the extremely high 60 GHz frequencies it uses, which limits its connections to near-line-of-sight within a single room. Signals in the 57–64 GHz region are subject to a resonance of the oxygen molecule and are severely attenuated.

Early 60 GHz implementations based on the WiGig WiGig Alliancespecifications are entering the market now, and ABI Research forecasts that by 2016, annual shipments of devices with both Wi-Fi and WiGig technology will reach 1.8 billion.

 

Category: Wireless | Tags: , , , ,
| January 8, 2013
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Open Source Wireless for Detroit

Open Source Wireless for DetroitDetroit is the proving grounds for a new open source wireless network technology called Commotion. According to FierceWireless, Commotion is a new wireless mesh-networking platform being deployed across Detroit by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute (OTI).

DetroitThe OTI has completed the first phase of construction of the  wireless test bed in Detroit’s Cass Corridor, where Commotion connects low-income apartment buildings, community centers, churches and businesses. FierceWireless says the prototype open-source network allows neighbors to communicate with one another and can potentially distribute Internet access to local residents, the group says. “The Detroit wireless network … will put control of the Internet into the hands of its users,” said OTI Director Sascha Meinrath. “The partners OTI works with in Detroit are not only self-provisioning connectivity for local residents, they’re proofing out technologies that support free, safe, ubiquitous communications around the globe.”

Open source wirelessStacey Higginbotham at GigaOM reports the new stack has technologies such as Serval, which would enable the handsets to recognize the Commotion network, Tor, a program that can hide where a user is coming from and OpenBTS, an open source base station that runs software that can interface between VoIP networks and GSM radios.

The OTI release on the news notes that more than half of Detroit residents do not have Internet service at home due to the cost of service and a lack of investment in infrastructure by Internet service corporations.

GigaOM also notes that the public release of Commotion follows a funding round for a company called Open Garden, which is pursuing a similar mesh network creation software. Meanwhile Range Networks has formed to support the OpenBTS standard and deliver a “network in a box” that runs the OpenBTS software and allows users to make voice calls anywhere in the world.

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George BushAm I the only one that sees the irony that the fed‘s are using Detroit as a proving ground for technologies designed to help take down dictatorships. According to the OTI press release, the U.S. Department of State is funding the Detroit Commotion project to test the potential of the technology in third world places like Egypt or Syria or Detroit.

Don’t worry, we are the government and we are here to help.

Do you think Open Source Wireless for Detroit will work?

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Category: Wireless | Tags: , , , , , ,
| October 2, 2012
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Texas Schools Track Students with Chip in ID Cards

RFID smart card technologyUpdated 01-19-13 The student lost her lawsuit against the district. The student and her family had sued the district, claiming that her first amendment rights were being violated (she claims the RFID tag is “the mark of the Beast”), but the school removed the RFID chip from her ID and the court found that that was a reasonable accommodation.

Updates 12-02-12 A self-described teenaged Anonymous hacker claims to have hacked the web site of Texas’s Northside Independent School District’s in support of student who refuses to wear an RFID ID badge according to the San Antonio Express-News. The district’s site was never compromised, Northside spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the teenaged hacker wrote: “Now it is your school and your rules, but you seen what I did to your website, and have a simple deal for you, weather you accept it or not, is up to you,” the statement reads. “If you still want to do this tracking idea on the students, at least have a meeting with each and every students parents, so they know what is going on.”

Updated 11-21-12 It is not surprising to me that Wired is reporting that the school district is being sued over the program. According to Wired, the family, claims that the student refuses to wear the badge because it signifies Satan.

A Texas school district is putting tracking chips into new, mandatory student ID’s to keep tabs on students’ whereabouts while on campus. According to Sophos’ Naked Security blog, Texas’s Northside Independent School District‘s John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School are performing a pilot test of the technology.

Sophos logoFOX 29 TV in Texas reports that students will be required to wear the cards on a lanyard around their necks and will be charged a fee for losing them. Their location will be beamed out to electronic readers throughout the campuses.

The one-year pilot program, which will cost the district $261,000, is also expected to increase attendance, and could bring an extra $2 million to the district in state funding as a result, District spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said. He stated that the program will be reevaluated next summer.

Track to SchoolIn a letter to parents, school administrators stated that the ID cards will store no personal information and that they’ll work only on school grounds. “Think how important this will be in the case of an emergency,” the letter reads. “In addition, the ‘smart’ student ID card will be used in the breakfast and lunch lines in the cafeteria and to check out books from the library. Because all students will be required to wear their ‘smart’ ID, staff will be able to quickly identify Jay students inside the school.”

FoxNews reports that a coalition of privacy and civil liberties organizations and experts have called for a moratorium on the technology, including the American Civil Liberties Union.

RFID tagThe Sophos blog reports that some parents are protesting, comparing the tags to RFID tags used to track cattle. Steven Hernandez, a father of a student who attends the school and the only local parent to attend a protest late last month, told KSN News that the new badges amount to “a spy chip”.

His daughter, Andrea, a sophomore, told KSN that she’s decided to wear her old photo ID even though students were told the new micro-chip ID is mandatory: “It makes me uncomfortable. It’s an invasion of my privacy.”

Northside ISD’s Gonzalez rejected that criticism, saying the pilot program and the “smart” ID cards have been used successfully in Houston’s Spring Independent School District for at least the past five years. “This is non-threatening technology,” he said. “This is not surveillance.”

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There is a great deal of bluster arounPoll: Should I use my new blink card?d this article on the blog. Look around people, your passports and drivers licences have RFID tags. What about proximity card readers? Have you checked the Visa in your wallet? Isn’t near field communications (NFC) the hot topic in the VC world?

I will bet a cookie that some of the same folks blustering about ID tags also favor gutting public education funding, yet the object to efforts to increase alternate sources of revenue for Texas schools by using chips in student ID cards.

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Category: Wireless | Tags: , , , , ,
| July 27, 2012
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Bill Ford Wants to Turn Michigan into “Silicon Valley of Mobility”

Michigan Ford Motor Company (F) Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. believes Detroit and Michigan can shed their rust belt persona. In a speech during the annual Mackinac Policy Conference, on Mackinaw Island, Mr. Ford said the Motor City can shed its rust belt image and take on high-tech communities like San Francisco, Palo Alto, California or Seattle. The Ford Chairman contends Michigan can be repositioned as the “Silicon Valley of Mobility.”

Ford Motor Company logoThe Detroit Bureau observes this is a matter of been-there-done-that. In its heyday, in the early years of the 20th Century, Detroit was the quintessential American boom town, much like Silicon Valley is today. It was dubbed by many the “Paris of the Midwest” because of its art, architecture and sophisticated lifestyle. But things began to rapidly decline in the post-War years and today some old industrial sites are being converted back to farmland.

Chairman Ford insisted continuing decline is not inevitable, especially if Detroit and Michigan embrace new “green, smart technologies.” Mr. Ford continued, “To address this issue, we will once again need new technologies, as well as new ways of looking at the world. We will need to view the automobile as one element of a transportation ecosystem.”

Detroit ZooThe automobile, Bill Ford has noted on several occasions, can no longer be viewed as a standalone machine. Industry leaders need to accept and respond to such challenges as fuel economy, emissions, safety and highway gridlock.

“This technology is in varying stages of development and deployment, but it promises to radically transform the experience of driving,” said Ford during his speech. “As it develops, I believe Michigan must become the Silicon Valley of the mobility revolution.”

The Ford Chairman noted the automaker has so far invested nearly a billion dollars in battery technology in Michigan. That includes upgrades to the Michigan Assembly Plant in the Detroit suburb of Wayne that recently began producing the new Ford Focus Electric. The factory will also add a plug-in hybrid version of Ford’s new C-Max “people-mover” later this year.

Help wantedAs TheDetroitBureau.com recently reported, there has been a significant turnaround in terms of high-tech job opportunities in Michigan. According to the Society of Automotive Engineers and other groups, there is now a shortage of trained specialists, especially with more advanced skills in areas such as fuel economy and emissions controls. And Detroit’s Big Three aren’t the only ones hiring. Virtually every major automaker and supplier now has a significant tech presence in Metro Detroit, including Toyota which has set up a major test track and engineering center near Ann Arbor.

In his speech, Chairman Ford noted a recent study by TechAmerica Foundation (which I also noted here) that found that despite the deep recession Michigan had added more high-tech jobs in 2009 and 2010 than any other state.

Investment in upgrading the electrical gridThe turnaround of the Great Lakes State will require a significant effort, the Ford Chairman acknowledged, and will take steps that ensure its competitiveness according to the article. He concluded his speech by calling on lawmakers to take several steps, including the elimination of personal property taxes and an investment in upgrading the electrical grid – which many see as a significant impediment to both expanded industrialization and the growth of the electric vehicle market.

“We can keep this momentum going if we are frank about the areas in which we can improve and we build upon our advantages,” Ford added.

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I think there are more fundamental problems that Michigan is going to have to solve before it can take on Silicon Valley. The labor supply pool in Michigan is very thin even for the most basic IT positions like field technicians. Where I am working now, it is a constant struggle to find staff that have some enterprise experience and people skills. I think that anybody with some good skills is either working or has left Michigan.

 

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