Voice over WiFi offers some interesting possibilities for efficient call routing; many believe that mobile phones will, as standard, support WiFi as well as your local cellular protocol and will switch to an office or home WiFi network when available, providing lower cost routing and deskphone-type facilities.
There is a very wide range of opinions, however, as to how quickly this will take off and enter the mainstream.
As an unscientific but amusing attempt to gain your thoughts, please participate in this poll.
Go to www.simonsaunders.com/vowifipoll.htm and provide comments on this post.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Getting a fix on WiMax
I was quoted recently in an article on WiMax; it represents my thoughts pretty well.
WiFi: the new Ham Radio?
It used to be that the only way to experiment with radio transmission in the UK was to become a radio amateur, or radio ham. In order to be considered fit to do this, you had to pass one exam on a variety of technical topics and another one on the terms & conditions of the licence. In order to be permitted to work on the prized HF bands (below 30MHz), you then had to learn to send an receive Morse code at speeds exceeding 12 words per minute.
This ensured that radio amateurs were a pretty arcane breed ( I went through all this at the age of 14, earning the snappy call sign G6FNE, but I haven't had cause to use it for many years). But the resulting experimentation produced lots of discoveries and innovation in fundamental radiowave propagation science and in many aspects of RF circuit design.
As computing rose in popularity, the sorts of peple who would formerly have been motivated to become radio amateurs turned their attention to experimentation with programming. The radio amateur authorities progressively relaxed the rules in order to attract new blood, but it is still very much a minority sport.
These days, the spirit of wireless experimenttation has been revived, however via the rise of technologies operating in licence-exempt bands, particularly WiFi. What's more WiFi links the worlds of radio and computing, so that we no longer need to see these as separate worlds.
Mind you , I used to regularly speak with folks in Italy, and often further afield, using my amateur licence: try that with WiFi! (and no, WiMax doesn't go that far!)
This ensured that radio amateurs were a pretty arcane breed ( I went through all this at the age of 14, earning the snappy call sign G6FNE, but I haven't had cause to use it for many years). But the resulting experimentation produced lots of discoveries and innovation in fundamental radiowave propagation science and in many aspects of RF circuit design.
As computing rose in popularity, the sorts of peple who would formerly have been motivated to become radio amateurs turned their attention to experimentation with programming. The radio amateur authorities progressively relaxed the rules in order to attract new blood, but it is still very much a minority sport.
These days, the spirit of wireless experimenttation has been revived, however via the rise of technologies operating in licence-exempt bands, particularly WiFi. What's more WiFi links the worlds of radio and computing, so that we no longer need to see these as separate worlds.
Mind you , I used to regularly speak with folks in Italy, and often further afield, using my amateur licence: try that with WiFi! (and no, WiMax doesn't go that far!)
Welcome to Simon's wireless blog.
Welcome. I intend to post some thoughts on the wonderful world of wireless to this blog, as and when the fancy takes me.
If you haven't already been there, see my website at www.simonsaunders.com for more information on me and more besides. Email me at simon@simonsaunders.com
If you haven't already been there, see my website at www.simonsaunders.com for more information on me and more besides. Email me at simon@simonsaunders.com
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