View Full Version : Sentech MyWireless technology overview..
After doing a bit of reading and researching, it would appear that Sentech are using W-CDMA, a 3G cellular technology.
They are following in the footsteps of a New Zealand company doing something similar, called Woosh, http://www.woosh.com. They also appear to be using the same products and equipment.
The equipment appears to come from a company called IPWireless, http://www.ipwireless.com.
URLs of interest include http://www.ipwireless.com/tech_over.html and http://www.ipwireless.com/products/modem.html.
-jus
Further reading also indicates that the 128k, 256k or 512k speeds are not hard maximums (as with fixed line connectivity such as ADSL), but rather averages.. in other words it will be burstable, and you may even at times experience the full 3mbit/sec throughput, or conversely at other times get a bit less.
Of further interest..
"In early 2004, IPWireless will introduce its System on a Chip, a .13 micron ASIC that combines all of the digital components of its current modems."
This means you could have digital camera's or streaming mp3 players that are permanently connected to broadband Internet.. and VOIP (Voice-over-IP) cellphones!
Karnaugh
28-11-2003, 12:37 PM
this is indeed an exciting new service.
I mean as it is, I could get the PCMCIA card for my laptop and have 3mb wireless internet "anywhere" in SA :)
Thats the kind of future we are looking at here.
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That's pretty much the idea. It's a mobile, 3G cellular switched network.. jumping the gun on the cellular companies a little ;-) In Japan and other countries they already have a form of 3G, with 384kbit/sec straight to their cellphones.
just phoned ipwireless in the UK to find out if I can buy the modem over here before I go back to South Africa ... and NO ... they said I will have to buy it through Sentech
Before I even mentioned the Sen .... this guy at the UK offices already finsished my sentence for me .. they are well aware of Sentech in South Africa and the frequencies they will be operating at (think he said 2.4Ghz)
I already bought :
ADSL router
Pent@Net Sat Receiver card
ISDN Modem
56k modem
shipped them all back to South Africa, but thought I could get one of these ipwireless modems for cheap over here, but they don't wanna sell it to me [xx(]
ProAsm
29-11-2003, 12:53 AM
Nice bit of research you did there jus - nice going.
Yes this wireless internet is the future, fixed lines is the past.
We have many things still to come which will blow your mind away.
In the not too distant future terestial TV and Radio signals will be very different to the way it is now and will be fully intergrated into our wireless network.
This is just the beginning and the tip of the iceberg [:)]
Andre
29-11-2003, 10:00 AM
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by ProAsm</i>
In the not too distant future terestial TV and Radio signals will be very different to the way it is now and will be fully intergrated into our wireless network.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
HDTV or something similar?
ProAsm
29-11-2003, 10:37 AM
Spot on [:)]
Essentially what we're talking about here is any and all forms of communication and media we are used to receiving over various mediums, over one single, broadband, IP-based cellular mobile network.
Digital radio (Imagine a 128kbit mp3 streamed to your car or portable mp3 player), digital interactive TV (select your movie and have it played at any time), voice-over-IP (Goodbye GSM and high call rates!), mobile broadband Internet (in your car, on your cellphone, in your house, at work, on your digital camera, etc), remote control your house, security system, fridge, toaster... almost all of this is possible right now, as soon as you're on the W-CDMA network.
Shoutcast can do streaming mp3s, DivX was designed for streaming high-quality movies, Voip on a cellphone is a few months away and the software already exists(bring on the IPWireless ASIC chip!), and more and more people are putting LAN's in their homes.
Thanks to Sentech we are going to become one of the most advanced countries in the world in this sphere, as one of the first to implement a 3G based cellular network.
ProAsm.. guess your secret's out ;-) One question: The rate limiting, is it being done at the network border, and if so, does that mean that from a MyWireless-to-MyWireless account will you be able to get the full 3mbit/sec? Obviously that's an awesome benefit of what I call a "community wireless network" -- inter-sharing between those that are on the network, without actually travelling onto the Internet.
-jus
ProAsm
29-11-2003, 10:43 PM
jus, I can only speak of what i see and work with and also assume.
Now the installation that I'm working on I see no software or hardware that limits anyone at any time, which tells me its going to be the same as the VSTAR system, in otherwords when you start a download and lets say you are the only one downloading you get the full 3mbits (or whatever is over at the time) depending on your signal of course and as more and more start downloading stuff so your rate drops until the contention ratio is reached. If everyone is doing heavy downloads (highly unlikely) then everyone drops together as more people start downloading stuff.
Doing it this way makes up for peak times when everything slows down a bit.
If however we find that too many people are dropping too often, I put in a report and we just open some more bandwidth at our expensive of course, which by then we should be well in the black [:)]
On the otherhand I could be wrong and software is installed to limit people at their particular speed.
Btw the rate limiting is done at the cells network border.
Regarding MyWireless to MyWireless, mmm... provided they are both off the same cell, thats an interesting one an I most certainly will look into that. - hehe... like a big LAN [;)]
That's great, VSTAR's awesome burstability makes it fantastic. Are you going to be running a local cache for HTTP traffic, like with VSTAR? I've experienced downloading a cached item over VSTAR and I got roughly the full 11mbit/sec that the link is capable of. Very fast (~1.5mbyte/sec)
This is good news, and can put to bed all those contention-ratio-model naysayers.
Staind
30-11-2003, 10:37 AM
ok i was reading this after i posted my reply about what speeds are expected and realising that 12 +- ppl d/l at max ull get +- 300k per sec d/l's which is damn fast but say 100 people were d/l at max then ur speeds start dropping, and as you reach down to your package the contention ratio kicks in and u get more bandwidth than someone on a lower package? is that correct i'm still trying to see this clearly.
Karnaugh
30-11-2003, 12:58 PM
Rofl, seeing as a certain member of the board who I happen to know works at Sentech said so, it is using 3G technology.
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Jerrek
30-11-2003, 06:41 PM
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">In Japan and other countries they already have a form of 3G, with 384kbit/sec straight to their cellphones.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
You're only restricted to that slow speed if you go with DoCoMo's system which is based on the archaic GSM / GPRS system.
KDDI of Japan offers CDMA EV-DO service which is 2.4 Mbps.
A lot of North America is covered by the older CDMA 1X service, which is only 144 Kbps. Some parts are now EV-DO compatible, at 2.4 Mbps.
And, there is no paying per MB as with GSM and GPRS.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">2.4Ghz<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
2.4 GHz is not a frequency that W-CDMA operates on. Are you sure of that? Or, are you sure what Sentech is offering is a cellular system?
We have wireless internet here, but it is not cell based. You mount a small antenna on your roof and point it towards the tower. Speeds are up to 3 Mbps. It is NOT cell based though.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Thanks to Sentech we are going to become one of the most advanced countries in the world in this sphere, as one of the first to implement a 3G based cellular network.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Interesting. Since this new network is CDMA based, do you now have a CDMA-based infrastructure?
chopsky
01-12-2003, 03:01 AM
Those of you able to view streaming videos on the net, visit http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/communications/broadband/0,39020424,39115974,00.htm#
A great video all about the IPWireless(What sentech is using) broadband service. Looks amazing!
3GPP works in the following bands.
1900 - 1920 MHz (IMT-2000 3G band)
2010 - 2025 MHz (IMT-2000 3G band)
2053 - 2082 MHz
2500 -2690 MHz (MMDS / ITFS band in US, IMT-2000 extension band internationally
I take it these are regulated by ICASA.
The 2.43-2.48 GHz and 5.8 GHZ is supposed to be unregulated and is in what 802.11 technologies run.
mithrandi
02-12-2003, 01:32 AM
From the IPWireless website:
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">IPWireless Mobile Broadband technology is a packet data implementation of the international 3GPP Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) standard. Time-division-duplex (TDD) is used, according to the 3GPP UMTS UTRA TD-CDMA standard.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Now, as far as I can tell, TDD-CDMA and W-CDMA are two separate and different techlogies; could someone that's better aquainted with this stuff shed some light here?
mithrandi
Zeliard
02-12-2003, 07:42 AM
Mithrandi:
As far as I understand, the difference is in the way that the channels of communication are separated from each other:
1. In W-CDMA, this is done via frequency (i.e. allocating parts of the spectrum to individual channels)
2. In TD-CDMA, this is done via time slots (i.e. allocating tiny periods of time to each channel, during which it can receive or transmit)
Hope this helps,
Zeliard
To clear up some earlier questions, I believe Sentech are operating at the licensed 2.5GHz frequency. Also, it is a cellular system and not a directional system.. it is mobile, and using omni-directional antenna's, not directional, fixed antenna's.
-jus