Simon Saunders' Wireless Blog

Blog moved!

2008-06-10T10:32:00.002+01:00

This blog has now moved to realwireless.wordpress.com - updates will only be posted there.

Simon

Mobile Brodband Data Growth - in Finland

2008-05-28T18:52:00.001+01:00

In case anyone doubted the staggeringly high growth of mobile data over the last year or so, I came across some fascinating (and very detailed) statistics on mobile data in Finland (thanks to Dean Bubley for pointing these out).

Stunningly:

- Total data traffic in ‘07 was 13 x larger in volume than the previous year

- 92% of data traffic was from computers rather than phones

- This share of traffic was from just 2.1% of devices

Full details at:

http://www.netlab.tkk.fi/~jakivi/publications/Kivi_Mobile_Data_Service_Usage_2005_2007.pdf

Simon

Horsham, 28th May 2008 (via HSDPA!)

Femto Forum Femtocell-Network Integration Initiative

2008-02-01T10:05:00.000Z

We have just announced a new initiative to encourage convergence of the various methods for integrating femtocells with operator core networks. Operators have highlighted that this is one of the key issues for them in suppoprting femtocells economically as volumes rise beyond those present at initial launch. It also helps them support products from multiple femtocell vendors, giving customers choice regarding functions and form factors.

At the same time we announced several exciting new members (Cisco, Ericsson, Vodafone, BT etc.)

Plenty of press stories have picked up on this:

Femto gets real (Techworld)
Forum pushes interoperability (Light Reading)
Forum ranks swell (Light Reading)
Forum standards initiative (Telecoms.com)
Forum pushes standards (Techworld)
Cisco, Ericsson Swell Femto Forum Ranks (Light Reading)
Femto Forum initiative pushes core interoperability (Telecommunications)
NXP chips in for femtocell integration efforts (EE Times)
Calls grow for femtocell standardisation (vnu.net)
Femto Forum looks to standardize femtocell architecture (Network World)

Simon

West Sussex

1st Feburary 2008

Femto Forum Announced major new members, working groups & website

2007-11-07T09:16:00.000Z

Yesterday we were able to announce major new members who have joined the Femto Forum over the summer, including vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens Networks and NEC plus operators including Telefonica-O2, Bharti Airtel, Rogers Wireless, Bouyges Telecom and Carphone Warehouse Networks.

We also gave details of the four working groups we have set up to addresss various technical, market and regulatory aspects of femtocells.

Some stories relating to this release include the following:

Big operators, vendors join Femto Forum

EE Times

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202802834

Femtocells get a bit bigger

The Register

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/06/femto_forum_gets_bigger/

Operators Flock to Femto Forum

Unstrung

http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=138296

Femto Forum in the News

2007-07-05T23:24:00.000+01:00

Some of the initial press coverage following the launch of Femto Forum:

Netgear to use Ubiquisys femtocell technology
Computerwire

28 June 2007
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=6B345D38-97BB-4B0A-9325-E016CDA5BE4C
Phemtophobia

Telecoms.com/A week in wireless newsletter
29 June 2007
http://www.telecoms.com/itmgcontent/tcoms/expertview/articles/20017437298.html
Femtocell flurry
TotalTele.com
3 July 2007
http://www.totaltele.com/View.aspx?t=2&ID=93520
Femto Forum promises very small cells
The Register & Newswireless.net

2 July 2007
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/02/femto_forum/
http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/3489
Industry Forms Femto Forum
Unstrung
2 July 2007
http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=128161
The Femto Forum is Born
Fierce Broadband Wireless
2 July 2007
http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/story/the-femto-forum-is-born/2007-07-02
Femtocells gain ground with Netgear support and new Forum
Wireless Watch
2 July 2007
Newsletter
Forum formed to focus on femtocell development

EE Times
2 July 2007
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=200001834
Femtocell Forum Plans Standards Drive
Computerwire
2 July 2007
http://www.computerwire.com/industries/research/?pid=10AFB764%2D13B1%2D4B2B%2D9D74%2D499D0AA11CFF
Femto Forum promises base stations in homes
Techworld
3 July 2007
http://www.techworld.com/mobility/news/index.cfm?newsid=9350
Open standards forum opens for femtocell firms
Electronics Weekly
2 July 2007
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2007/07/02/41719/Open+standards+forum+opens+for+femtocell+firms.htm
Femtocell heads get it together
Telecom Redux
2 July 2007
http://www.telecomredux.co.uk/content/view/4504/1/
Femto Forum Launched
3g.co.uk
2 July 2007
http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/July2007/4862.htm
Femto Forum Formed For Support And Promotion Of Femtocell Deployment Worldwide
RF Globalnet
2 July 2007

http://www.rfglobalnet.com/content/news/article.asp?docid=324238f3-f674-404f-afea-ebdb1980b080&atc~c=771+s=773+r=001+l=a
Femto Forum launches to promote femtocell deployment
Telecompaper
2 July 2007
http://www.telecom.paper.nl/news/article.aspx?id=174262&nr=
Key Announcements
inbabble.com
2 July 2007
http://inbabble.com/2007/07/03/briefbabble-iphone-helio-t-mobile-uma-clearwire-voip-femto-forum-grandcentral/
Femtocell-mates multiply

Telecom Redux
2 July 2007
http://www.telecomredux.co.uk/content/view/4503/1/
The Femto Forum - Major Operators and Vendors Join Forces in New Body to Promote Femtocell Standardisation and Deployment

TMC Net
2 July 2007
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2007/07/02/2754783.htm

The Femto Forum goes live!

2007-07-01T21:42:00.000+01:00

West Sussex

I have recently been appointed founding chairman of The Femto Forum, an independent, inclusive, international body promoting the deployment of femtocells. Femtocells are low power home access points using cellular standards and licensed spectrum to provide dedicated home coverage and capacity to standard mobile devices. Femto Forum has major operators and vendors both big and small as its members, and launches publically tomorrow.

Femto Forum will drive standards to ensure femtocells can be manufactured cheaply enough to be suitable for home use, will provide market education to ensure the benefits of femtocells are well understood, and will develop the 'ecosystem' of operators and vendors to help create a thriving industry.

I'm produ to be involved with such an exciting area of technology, which is one of the development which promises to finally fulfill the latent promise of in-building wireless which has been apparent over the last decade or so.
Simon

Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board

2007-05-17T11:40:00.001+01:00

I'm delighted to announce that I have just been appointed to the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board (www.osab.org.uk). OSAB provides independent advice to Ofcom (www.ofcom.org.uk) on strategic spectrum management issues. It provides input directly to Ofcom's main board. This gives me a great opportunity to gain deeper knowledge of (and potentially to influence) Ofcom's future direction on spectrum matters. I also get to interact with some very interesting people, namely:

Sir David Brown - Chairman of Motorola Limited
Dr David Cleevely - Founder of Analysys and previous Chairman of Analysys Limited
Professor Leela Damodaran - leads the Information, Technology and Society Research Group at Loughborough University
Professor Barry Evans - Director of the Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR) and Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research & Enterprise) at University of Surrey
Debbie Gillatt - Director, Communications Networks at the Department of Trade and Industry
Phillipa Marks - Director of Indepen Consulting
Andrew Sleigh - Managing Director, Knowledge and Information Systems Division for QinetiQ
Professor Will Stewart - Previously the Chief Scientist at Marconi
Stephen Temple CBE - Previously Director of Strategic Projects, Vodafone and Managing Director of the Networks Division of ntl
Dr Walter Tuttlebee - Chief Executive of the Virtual Centre of Excellence in Mobile & Personal Communications - Mobile VCE
Robert Pepper - Senior Managing Director, Global Advanced Technology Policy, Cisco Systems Inc and previously Bureau Chief at the FCC
Professor Tommaso Valletti - Professor of Economics at Imperial College London and at the University of Rome

Future of Wireless Comms Book now available

2006-09-01T17:15:00.000+01:00

West Sussex
The book to which I contributed a chapter is to appear in January 2007 and is now available .
Simon

UK Wi-Max: Spectrally Challenged?

2006-08-18T12:49:00.000+01:00

from Warnham

Wi-Max is a mixed blessing. It's a fantastic technology, with great potential, but plenty of questions hang over the size of its potential success.

I've previously written about the generality of the technology: Wi-Max is not magic - it's subject to exactly the same trade-offs between range, capacity and quality which any system deals with, so that mobile Wi-Max is likely to achieve much the same range and practical throughput as 3.5G, despite higher advertised peak rates.

Nevertheless, Wi-Max (and similar technologies, particularly Wi-Bro) is showing great uptake outside of the UK, such as the recent announcement by Sprint Nextel in the US that they are intending to spend $3 billion to support 100 million WiMax users by the end of 2008.

In the UK, however, there is a limit on deployments due to the lack of available spectrum. The 5.8GHz band (just above 802.11a Wi-Fi) is available, but those frequencies don't propagate very far and don't penetrate into buildings very well. Additionally, the 'light licensing' regime in that band means that there is no certainty of protection against interference from other users.

Following some auctions and subsequent aggregation Pipex and UKBroadband have some decent spectrum at around 3.5GHz. UK broadband is operating using other technologies, but Pipex is certainly pressing ahead with WiMax plans via trials and have marked up the estimated value of their licence from zero in 2003 to £5m in 2004. There is reason to suspect this is a substantial underestimate now...

The really 'tasty' spectrum for Wi-Max would be the set of bands around 2.6 GHz. It propagates well, there's a decent amount of bandwidth available and equipment should be readily available as these bands (or nearby) are widely available in other major markets. Ofcom has announced its intention to licence these as part of its burgeoning spectrum awards programme, but plenty of roadblocks remain, including the fact that these bands are equally attractive for extra 3G capacity, and are currently designated for 3G alone at European level.

It could easily take until the end of 2007 before the relevant auctions take place, and there are many unanswered questions about the way the spectrum will be packaged and managed. All this adds up to considerable uncertainty for Wi-Max in the UK.

I've been asked several times how much this spectrum might be auctioned for. My crystal ball is far too cloudy to put any precision to that, but for an interesting data point we can look to the current auctions by the FCC in the US for spectrum for Advanced Wireless Services - basically 3G and related services. At the time of writing the price was standing at over $12 thousand million (being careful not to confuse transatlantic billions).

Crudely, if we weight that figure by the ratio between the UK population and the US population we might expect the UK auction to yield at least £1,300 million. In practice I think there are at least two factors which might increase the UK pricing. UK population density is nearly ten times that in the US, increasing the return for operators relative to the network investment. Additionallym the US already has spectrum suitable for WiMax, so we may see operators supporting competing technologies in a bidding war.

It's not quite at the same levels as the heady days of the 3G auctions in 199 (which produced around £23billion), but if Ofcom can move quickly to clear the remianing obstacles,it promises to be an interesting auction. On the other hand, if they don't, WiMax could miss its mass-market opportunity in the UK altogether.

The Mesh Conundrum...

2006-08-11T13:33:00.000+01:00

from Warnham

Mesh Wi-Fi is a hot topic, with commercial products, standardisation activities making good progress and much excitment about the potential for wireless cities using this technology. Onthe other hand, reserach commissioned by Ofcom suggests that the some of the claimed spectral efficiency and capacity advantages of meshes, particularly at lower frequencies and in mobile scenarios, may be false.
Why the disparity? Is the Ofcom study not relevant to wireless city scenarios?Or are manufacturers overlooking some basics in the rush to produce product.? I'd be interested in views either way..

UK Communications Market Statistics

2006-08-10T21:01:00.000+01:00

Ofcom have just published their annual market report, packed with interesting stats and free of charge:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/cm

Some examples (my emphasis):

Total retail revenue in the UK communications sector reached £50bn in 2005, a 5% increase compared to 2004. The biggest annual rise (£2bn) came from the telecoms sector
Consumption of many communications services is rising. On average in 2005, mobile subscribers made more calls and sent more texts than they did in 2001, internet users spent almost 20 minutes more time online per week.
There is also evidence of a significant difference in communications usage patterns between young adults and the general population: for example, 16-24 year olds spend on average 21 minutes more time online per week, send 42 more SMS text messages, but spend over seven hours less time watching television.
Availability of several new digital services increased during 2005; 3G mobile services are now available to over 90% of the population and the proportion of unbundled exchanges is up ten percentage points on 2004.
Take-up of digital services continued to increase over the year: by March 2006 18.3 million UK homes took digital TV services, 11 million homes and small businesses had broadband connections, and there were around five million 3G subscribers.
Mobile telecoms comprised £13.1 billion (34%) of total retail telecoms revenue – up from £12.0 billion in 2004
Some 31% of UK call volumes in 2005 were from mobiles – a rise of three percentage points from 2004, and 11 percentage points higher than in 2001.

Consumer Push Email to drive mobile data volumes

2006-08-10T10:32:00.000+01:00

From Warnham

One of the predictions I have made in my chapter for the forthcoming book "Future of Wireless Communications" is that push email services will be taken up extensively by consumers - particularly young ones - and this will be one of the factors which heavily drive the growth in data volumes for 3G (and other) networks.
It seems that RIM think so too, as it is rumoured that they are soon to launch a consumer version of the Blackberry.
Another of my predictions is that networks will start to offer instant messaging with free updating of online contact lists to drive traffic. Still waiting for some evidence of this one...

So just what is wireless?

2006-06-25T14:43:00.000+01:00

From Home

In this part of the world, the last few years have seen the word 'wireless' become synonymous with Wi-Fi.

For several years more, in North America, wireless has usually been taken to mean what Europeans call cellular mobile.

When I say wireless, I mean the totality of wireless communications, including all the frequency bands, technologies and application areas. It even includes non-radio technologies, such as infra-red data and line-of-sight optical communications. This definition is reasonably consistent with the definition currently in Wikipedia.

Wireless in this broad sense is more than a century old.

Why does it matter? Because the danger is that a poor choice for mapping an application to a technology and frequency band could lead users to conclude that any wireless technology will produce the same result. They may then be reticent to put any more time, effort or money into getting it right, and that would limit their capabilities to communnicate and gain benefits, as well as slowing the industry.

Reclaim wireless! The campaign starts here...

T-Mobile Announces HSDPA Service

2006-06-25T13:17:00.001+01:00

From home

The following data rates, offered via HSDPA mobile and over the wide area (i.e. not Wi-Fi) would have sounded like science-fiction just a few years ago:

Initially (Q3/4 this year) with a download speed of 1.8Mbps everywhere in the cell, compared to just 384kbps (up and downlink) for standard 3G.
Next year 3.6Mbps download nearest the base station, degrading as the subscriber moves out to the edge of the cell,
By the end of next year, 7.2Mbps download out to the cell edge, together with 1Mbps uplink using HSUPA.

I'd caution that an over-the-air rate offered everywhere does not translate to the same user rate everywhere, just as 11 or 54Mbps advertised on your Wi-Fi client does not translate to anything like that if the channel is busy or if you are suffering interference. Nevertheless, these are impressive numbers. How long until that kind of rate is widely available via Mobile WiMax?

See here for the full article (you'll need to register with ComputerWire).

T-Mobile Announces HSDPA Service

2006-06-25T13:17:00.000+01:00

From home

The following data rates, offered via HSDPA mobile and over the wide area (i.e. not Wi-Fi) would have sounded like science-fiction just a few years ago:

Initially (Q3/4 this year) with a download speed of 1.8Mbps everywhere in the cell, compared to just 384kbps (up and downlink) for standard 3G.
Next year 3.6Mbps download nearest the base station, degrading as the subscriber moves out to the edge of the cell,
By the end of next year, 7.2Mbps download out to the cell edge, together with 1Mbps uplink using HSUPA.

DVB-H vs DMB for Mobile TV: Whither 3G?

2006-06-25T08:17:00.000+01:00

There is currently a debate raging as to whether the best long-term technology for broadcasting mobile TV, is DVB-H or DMB, with DVB-H looking like the front runner.

But this is odd. 3G was created as a universal standard for wide area mobile access to high-rate data applications. When it was being standardised, no-one was entirely sure what those applications might be, but they pressed on anyway and lots of marketing folks spent time around whiteboards discussing what the 'killer application' might be. There now looks to be a strong possibility that Mobile TV is an example of such an application: high bit-rate, mass appeal, and the real prospect that users might actually pay more for the service, thereby increasing ARPU.

And just as operators find a killer application, they decide that 3G might not be the technology for offering it! I find this hard to believe. Instead, I think operators will find ways to make 3G do the job. Let me explain why.

One justification quoted for moving to DVB-H/DMB is that 3G gets heavily loaded by high-rate applications, causing cell breathing and hence gaps in the network coverage, particularly indoors. That's certainly true, but technologies like HSDPA and 3G LTE (so-called 'Super 3G') will enhance the data rate capabilities of 3G, and new base station form factors and distribution technologies will provide an economical way to roll-out indoor coverage.

Another is that 3G is not fundamentally a broadcast technology, requiring the same programme to be sent individually to each user (unicast), worsening the loading issue. True, but MBMS will deal with this by providing multicast options, and the availability of large amounts of flash or hard disk storage on phones means that they will download delay insensitive programming, which represents most TV, when the networks are not fully loaded.

Also, UK 3G handset penetration has now reached about 15% (source?), growing to 68% by 2010, there aren't any DVB-H/DMB handsets on the open market yet. I think it will take about ten years longer for such technologies to reach 75% penetration than 3G. Operators can't wait for that and will do what they can with 3G, which is currently fairly under-utilised. Operators such as Vodafone are already doing this.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the general discussion is that wholesale operators such as BTWholesale or Arqiva will own and run the networks over which Mobile TV is provided. There is some logic in working that way, but clearly they won't do this for free and this will erode the ARPU advantage of Mobile TV. Again, I think the mobile operators will not let this happen too easily. These networks will themselves need huge investment and will take many years to provide extensive coverage, by which time 3G network coverage will have expanded hugely in extent and depth. Currently even the relevant spectrum is not available, although Ofcom is working on that, with auctions expected next year.

Overall, then, I think the relevant battle is not between DVB-H and DMB, but between these technologies and 3G, where the issues are more finely balanced. Operators might just be making the right noises about the broadcasting technologies while figuring out all the ways in which they can avoid the day when they have admit that 3G is not fit for the very purpose it was designed for.

How Many HotSpots doth a HotCountry make?

2006-06-24T19:36:00.000+01:00

From home

In my last post (on the BT HomeHub), I commented briefly on the range available from Wi-Fi hotspots compared with a wide-area cellular mobile operator. But what's the real situation?

Wi-Fi access points might have a typical range of about 30m (depends on lots of complicated radiowave propagation issues and the quality of your access point and device and lots of other things, but bear with me).

According to BT’s own list of hotspots (5.52 MB), there are 9362 of these in the UK, including those provided by other service providers (e.g. The Cloud and T-Mobile) who BT has a roaming agreement with.

By this simple arithmetic, these hotspots currently cover some 25.5 million square metres.

The UK land area is 244,820 square kilometres. That means only 1/9249 of the country’s land area is currently covered. It would take 86.5 million hotspots to cover everywhere. It seems that they are a long way from being able to provide a service which could compete with that provided by mobile operators.

But hold on. According to government statistics, “Over 90 per cent of our population lives in urban areas covering just eight per cent of the land area.” This area could be covered by ‘just’ 7.8M hotspots. Imagine that it costs £1000 to install each of these (including hardware). They’d then cover 90% of the population for 8 thousand million pounds.

Or just 30% more than Vodafone paid for their 3G spectrum licence in 1999. That was before they had even started building the network, which even today does not cover 90% of the population (Vodafone currently say their 3G network covers 73% of the population, compared with 99.7% for their 2G network. See map). It gets better: BT will even get you to pay for the hardware (£200) if you want to help them by adding another hotspot to their network.

Discuss.

BT Home Hub launch: Just a big Ipod, or a point of control over your activities at home ?

2006-06-24T18:39:00.000+01:00

BT have just launched their 'Total Broadband' home service (see bt.com/broadband). Based around an ipod-styled 'home hub', it provides a lot more than vanilla broadband, including :

Home Wi-Fi access
Videocalls
Unlimited local and national voice calls
Wi-Fi access at BT (and roaming partner) hotspots and at their forthcoming 'wireless cities' via BT's 'Openzone' service.

They are also offering a Wi-Fi internet radio and it looks from the press as though they are intending to offer home security (burglar alarm) functions, gaming and ultimately video on demand (about time too - they've been talking about this for at least 20 years).

The home hub itself is hugely significant. Although in essence it's just a customised router and access point, it acts as a point of control in delivering the bundle of services listed above, and thereby reduces customer churn for BT. If you like the set of services you are paying for, it's unlikely you'll find quite that set from any other provider (and the 12/18 month minimum contract term should help to hold onto you too). It also provides BT with an opportunity to upsell you on all sorts of add-on services in the future, too (I gather the software on the hub can be updated remotely by BT). Most importantly for BT, it lifts their service from the cut-throat, low-margin world of access-only broadband to being exactly where they want to be: a provider of differentiated, high-margin, 'sticky' services.

The inclusion of the Openzone minutes is also interesting. Until now the service has been very much targetted (and priced) for corporate users. Once suitable devices are made available, this will enable BT to offer you the same range of services anywhere you go within range of a hotspot. But, you might say, finding a hotspot is really hard work and they are hard to find compared with mobile phone networks coverage, which is available almost everywhere. Watch this space...

Future of Wireless Communications Book

2006-06-24T16:57:00.000+01:00

I am pleased to say that I was invited to contribute a chapter to the book of this name, edited by Prof. William Webb, Head of R&D for Ofcom. I have just finished working on it and am looking forward to seeing the result in print later in the year.

This is the second edition of the book- the first edition is now five years old.

I am amongst prestigious company, and can only hope that my chapter lives up to this in some small way. My co-authors are:

Editor: Professor William Webb: Head of R&D and Senior Technologist for Ofcom
Professor Peter Cochrane. Previously CTO at BT and now involvedwith a wide range of ventures, start-ups and innovative consultancies.
Professor Dennis Roberson. Previously CTO of Motorola, now at the Illinois Institute
Tomi Ahonen. Author of a wide range of books focussing around 3Gservices, applications and marketing.
Stephen Temple. Senior strategist at Vodafone and one of the keydrivers behind the emergence of GSM.
Padmasree Warrior. CTO at Motorola.

In my contribution, I have first divided the next twenty years into three fairly arbitrary periods of five years, five years and ten years. For reasons which will become clear if you read the book (to be published towards the end of the year), I have given these names as follows:

2007-2011: The age of wireless proliferation
2012-2016: The age of wireless similarity
2017-2026: The age of wireless mundanity

In each age I have divided my thoughts regarding the future of wireless into the following general areas:

Services & Applications: what people are doing with wireless;
Devices: what people are using to access their wireless services: the user’s means of access to the wireless world;
Infrastructure: the changing equipment and system topologies for providing users with wireless access and interconnection to other systems and data sources;
Air interfaces: the 'over the air' language via which devices and networks intercommunicate;
Spectrum: the electromagnetic medium which permits wireless to work in the first place.

The first four of these follow a fairly conventional communications hierarchy. The last deserves a special mention, however. Spectrum, in the context of wireless communications, acts as the 'layer zero': the very stuff of which wireless consists. As result, I have paid special attention to its characteristics and impacts on the development of future systems and technologies.

I am confident that many of my predictions will be proven true and equal confidence that I will be utterly wrong in some important respects. Indeed, in several cases I have included predictions which may seem extreme in order to provoke discussion and to illustrate some important points. I look forward to discovering which predictions become realities over the coming years. In the meantime, I welcome hearing of your own opinions on how wireless is likely to develop over the next 20 years.

When will Voice over WiFi be used in your office?

2005-07-26T22:39:00.000+01:00

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.

Getting a fix on WiMax

2005-07-26T05:30:00.000+01:00

I was quoted recently in an article on WiMax; it represents my thoughts pretty well.

WiFi: the new Ham Radio?

2005-07-26T04:53:00.000+01:00

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!)

Welcome to Simon's wireless blog.

2005-07-26T04:10:00.000+01:00

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

Simon Saunders' Wireless Blog

Blog moved!

Mobile Brodband Data Growth - in Finland

Femto Forum Femtocell-Network Integration Initiative

Femto Forum Announced major new members, working groups & website

The Register

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/06/femto_forum_gets_bigger/

Operators Flock to Femto Forum Unstrung http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=138296

Femto Forum in the News

The Femto Forum goes live!

Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board

Future of Wireless Comms Book now available

UK Wi-Max: Spectrally Challenged?

The Mesh Conundrum...

UK Communications Market Statistics

Consumer Push Email to drive mobile data volumes

So just what is wireless?

T-Mobile Announces HSDPA Service

T-Mobile Announces HSDPA Service

DVB-H vs DMB for Mobile TV: Whither 3G?

How Many HotSpots doth a HotCountry make?

BT Home Hub launch: Just a big Ipod, or a point of control over your activities at home ?

Future of Wireless Communications Book

When will Voice over WiFi be used in your office?

Getting a fix on WiMax

WiFi: the new Ham Radio?

Welcome to Simon's wireless blog.

Operators Flock to Femto Forum

Unstrung

http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=138296